Gardaí investigating the murder of Kerry farmer Michael 'Mike' Gaine have arrested a man for questioning.
The man, who is in his 50s, was arrested at his home in Tralee and is being questioned at a garda station in Kerry
This is the second arrest in the investigation.
Southern Editor Paschal Sheehy looks back on the disappearance of the well-known farmer and the subsequent investigation.
Mike Gaine went missing from his farm at Carraig East, 8km from Kenmare, in Co Kerry, on 20 March 2025.
The 56-year old was well known in farming and motorsport circles.
From the outset, there was clear concern for his well-being.
On the weekend of his disappearance, hundreds of people joined a search of the rugged, mountainous terrain of his 1,000-acre farm, co-ordinated by gardaí and the Coast Guard.
The search involved the Kerry Mountain Rescue Team, the Civil Defence, Iveragh Coast Guard Unit, Rescue 115 (the Coast Guard helicopter based in Shannon) and the garda helicopter. Trained search dogs were also deployed during the search.
Mike Gaine's disappearance was initially treated by gardaí as a missing person's case. However, significant garda resources were allocated to the search and the investigation.
The investigation was directed from an incident room which was set up at Killarney Garda Station - underlining the level of concern there was for Mike Gaine within the investigating team.
The Garda Water Unit was also dispatched to Kenmare and searched a number of lakes, streams and rivers within a 5km radius of Mike Gaine's home.
Exactly a week after he disappeared, gardaí put checkpoints in place at junctions around Kenmare in an attempt to jog the memories of people who may have travelled those roads the day Mike Gaine went missing.
Superintendent David Callaghan spoke to the media that day, renewing the public appeal for information about his disappearance.
"Michael's family have had no contact with him," Supt Callaghan said. "His family and An Garda Síochána are extremely concerned for his well-being."
Some of the speculation around the case was hurtful to Mike Gaine's family, and community leaders and public representatives worked during this time to dial that down.
Local county councillor, neighbour and friend of the Gaine family, Dan McCarthy, was one of those. He was baffled by his friend's disappearance.
"There is nothing to explain Mike's disappearance," Cllr McCarthy told RTÉ News.
"It is absolutely out of character completely that he vanished off the face of the earth, in this rural part of the county and the country. Everyone is worried and concerned at this stage for Mike's safety."
On a visit to Kerry in April, then Garda commissioner Drew Harris was given a two-hour briefing by investigating gardai.
"There is a huge amount of work done in inquiries both in terms of the physical searching operation, but also the recovery of CCTV, dash cam footage, and also house to house inquiries, together with all the other inquiries one would make in terms of proof of life and trying to actually work out what happened between March 20 and 21," Mr Harris said.
"We've certainly been given a lot of assistance and information from the public, but we have yet to find him," he conceded.
A fortnight later, gardaí concluded that Mike Gaine was dead.
At the time, in the six weeks since Mike Gaine disappeared, gardaí revealed that the investigation team had undertaken:
* 320 individual enquiries or "jobs";
* almost 130 witness statements had been taken;
* around 2,200 hours of CCTV and dashcam footage had been recovered and were being examined; and
* hundreds of acres of farmland had been searched by trained search teams, using drones and by specially-trained search and rescue dogs and cadaver dogs.
Significantly at that time, gardaí said Mike Gaine's death was now being treated as homicide.
Central to the process that led gardaí to the conclusion that Mike Gaine was dead and to the reclassification of the investigation as a homicide, were the results of their enquiries to establish proof of life. When all enquiries to establish proof of life came back negative, reclassification of the investigation as a case of homicide was only a matter of time.
The following day - 1 May 2025 - gardaí released appeals which they recorded with Mike Gaine's wife, Janice, and his sister, Noreen O'Regan.
The strain on both was clearly visible in the videos.
"We just want Michael to come home," Janice Gaine said in the video statement.
"We want to know what happened to him, because if we can't find Michael I just don't know what I’m going to do."
Watch: We just want Michael home - Janice Gaine
She said Mike was her "best friend, my husband" and "this whole thing has been devastating".
"He loved his home, he loved his farm, he loved animals.
"He had lots of friends. He was a very popular guy.
"His disappearance is totally out of character and we knew that from day one."
Noreen O'Regan said the family were "absolutely devastated at what has happened".
"Our lives are shattered. We want answers. We love Michael, we want him back."
She described Mike Gaine as a "loving husband, brother, uncle", and said his nieces and nephews loved him.
"We are devastated and we want him back," she said.
Just over a fortnight later, a friend of Mike Gaine who was tending to his farm discovered human tissue as he spread slurry in fields close to the farmyard. The fields were sealed off and declared a crime scene, as were the farmyard and the slurry tank there from which the slurry had been drawn.
The slurry tank had been previously searched as part of the garda investigation.
Over that weekend, a huge, intensive search took place in the farmyard and in the surrounding fields. More human tissue was found in the slurry tank.
The material was later confirmed to be the partial remains of Mike Gaine.
On 25 May, gardaí arrested and questioned former US soldier Mike Kelley on suspicion of Mr Gaine's murder. He was released without charge just over 24 hours later.
Mr Kelley denied any involvement in Mike Gaine's death.
Since then, the garda investigation into Mike Gaine's disappearance and death has been continuing.
