A team of experts has spent the day searching land in Co Louth for the body of a British intelligence officer abducted and murdered by the IRA almost 50 years ago.
Captain Robert Nairac was taken away and shot after being confronted outside a pub near the village of Drumintee, in south Armagh in May 1977.
The 29-year-old soldier was working undercover and had gone into the pub that night in an attempt to gather intelligence.
The dig for his remains took place today in the Faughart area of Co Louth, on the border and a short distance from where he was abducted.
It is the first time there has been a search for Capt Nairac, who is one of the so-called Disappeared, a group of 17 people who were kidnapped and murdered by republicans during the Troubles and whose bodies were buried in secret.
Thirteen of the bodies have now been recovered.
Read more: Prime Time Rewind: What happened to Robert Nairac?
The search is being conducted by the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims' Remains (ICLVR).
It is not giving the precise location because it is on private land and the landowner has asked that it not be revealed.
Lead Investigator with the ICLVR Jon Hill said neither the landowner nor the tenant farmer who leases the land had any connection with the decision to conduct the search.
"Robert Nairac is one of the highest profile Disappeared and yet his case is one in which we have had very little to go on," he said.
"We believe that we do now have sufficient credible information to warrant a search.
"This search will differ in a number of respects from that recently completed - regrettably without success - for Columba McVeigh at Bragan Bog, Co Monaghan.
"First of all it is being carried out on private land and the land owner and tenant farmer have asked us not to reveal its precise location for reasons of privacy which we fully understand and I hope that is respected particularly by the media as the search gets under way.
"The area itself is relatively small, less than one acre, and farmland is inherently more stable than the bogland we have had to work on in other searches for the Disappeared.
"And so while the weather is always a factor we have to deal with I would hope that we will get a relatively clear run at this one," he said.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Mr Hill added: "We believe that immediately after the murder, his body was moved to an alternative location, and we're hopeful that is where we are searching now."
The site of the dig is within an area of significant archaeological interest and is dotted with protected sites.
The commission has been in touch with the National Monuments Service which has an interest in the wider area around the Hill of Faughart which was the location of a 14th century battle.
The commission has made provision for the possibility that the dig may uncover items of archaeological interests or historic remains but said it did not think the additional complexity would impede its search for Capt Nairac.
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The search will continue until his remains are found, or the search team is convinced that they are not on the site.
The Nairac family has been informed of the search.
In 1979 Cpt Nairac was posthumously awarded one of Britain's highest honours, the George Cross.
Jon Hill said he was not going to speculate about the likelihood of finding the murdered soldier, but said that if he was where they had been told, his team had the skills and experience to find him.
Several years ago an award of £20,000 was offered for information leading to the recovery of Cpt Nairac’s body.
Seven men were charged in connection with the 1977 killing in the 18 months after the incident.
Two were convicted of murder, one of manslaughter, one with kidnap and one with withholding information.
In 2011, an eighth man was acquitted of the murder having been charged after returning from the United States where he had spent several decades.
Capt Nairac is one of four remaining members of the Disappeared whose bodies have not been recovered.
The others are Columba McVeigh, Joe Lynskey, and Séamus Maguire.
The case of the missing British army captain has been a high profile one for years. Speculation about the disposal of his body led to lurid stories.
There were also allegations that he was linked to both republican and loyalist attacks along the border in the mid-70s including some of the most notorious killings of the Troubles.
A former head of the ICLVR Geoff Knupfer said he believed this was part of the reason so little information had been forthcoming about the whereabouts of his body.
Mr Knupfer later provided information which he said showed that Capt Nairac had been elsewhere when some of these high-profile murders had taken place.
