Lines of Enquiry

As students across the country prepare to go back to school after the summer holidays of 2016, Mary Coll arrived at her daughter Clodagh’s house in Castlerahan, County Cavan. Clodagh hadn’t shown up to meet her mother earlier that morning and Mary couldn’t get in touch. When she arrived at the house Clodagh shared with her husband Alan Hawe, and their three sons Liam, Niall and Ryan, Mary found a...

In the August of 1976, a young Dublin woman named Elizabeth Plunkett, went missing while on holidays in Brittas Bay, Co. Wicklow. Her friends and family searched through sand dunes, forests and along the roads for a trace of her - All to no avail.   Across the country, another young woman Mary Duffy read a newspaper article about Elizabeth Plunkett’s case with tears in her eyes. A few da...

In October 1986, 13-year-old Philip Cairns became one of the most recognisable faces in Ireland. The boy left his home in Dublin to walk back to school after lunch and vanished without a trace. His disappearance gripped the nation, changed how parents viewed their children’s safety, and left a family living with unanswered questions for nearly four decades. In this episode of Lines of Enquiry, Joh...

In August of 1987, 19 year old Trevor O’Keeffe embarked his journey home to Ireland after a brief holiday France. He planned to hitchhike across the north of the country, through the vineyards of the world-renowned Champagne province.  Trevor was unaware of the warnings against hitchhiking that had been made to young men across the region. He had not heard the local rumours about a serial kil...

On the night of September, the 4th 1992, Esther and Jessica McCann went to sleep and never woke up. The 36-year-old mother and her 18-month-old-toddler died when a fire swept through the house. It was a tragic loss of life. The young mother had been trying to adopt the little girl she had fostered since her birth. They were inseparable. And it followed a series of events in the home that baffled E...

In this episode of Lines of Enquiry: Case Notes, John Sweetman is joined by one of Ireland’s leading true crime podcasters, Nules Ní Chléirigh, creator and host of Ireland Crimes and Mysteries. John and Nules reflect on what draws them to the stories of some of Ireland’s biggest crimes, the realities of working on cases with no clear resolution, and the importance of ethical storytelling when deal...

28 year old mother of two Jasmine McMonagle loved to write and longed to be a children's author one day. In 2019, a letter she wrote was sent to the Garda Technical Bureau for examination. In the letter, Jasmine wrote of being held hostage in her own home, of threats against her and her daughters, and of how she would no longer live in fear. In this episode of Lines of Enquiry, John explains how t...

When Antra Ozolina was found dead in her home in Kilnaleck, Co Cavan in June 2014, from the outset, the explanation seemed straightforward and the case moved quickly towards closure.  But small details did not sit comfortably. The circumstances raised quiet questions. The timeline felt too neat and the version that was accepted left little room for doubt or for scrutiny.  In this episode...

The arrival of two detectives with very different backgrounds reinvigorates the search for Seamus Ruddy. As the new investigators search the darkest corners for information, they do it with a set of forensics skills never before seen in Ireland. The Ruddy family hold on to hope of finally ending their long nightmare, and a new source of information could prove to be the key. But there will be many...

In May of 1985, Seamus Ruddy went to meet three men in Paris. They were men he knew from a past life, in Ireland. Seamus had left that life behind, to start a new one in the French capital. His family had asked him not to go to the meeting, but Seamus had been assured he would be safe. He was never seen again after that night, and his disappearance would lead to a search spanning decades. The Rudd...

Jastine Valdez was abducted in broad daylight on a rural road in Enniskerry, Co Wicklow, in May 2018.  The 24-year-old had just stepped off a bus that dropped her only a few minutes’ walk from her home.  Just moments later, a woman driving along that quiet country road spotted a man seemingly trying to force a young woman into his car. What followed was a frantic garda manhunt, as they r...

In this, Lines of Enquiry’s inaugural ‘Case Notes’, John Sweetman introduces a new strand of his hit true crime podcast series. Stepping away from any one specific case in detail and instead revisiting past investigations and responding to listener questions, John takes us behind the scenes of Lines of Enquiry. This first episode of ‘Case Notes' is also the last in Season 1 of Lines of Enquiry. Re...

When Anne O'Sullivan was diagnosed with terminal cancer, tensions within her family about who would inherit her substantial plot of farm land came to the surface. Soon, Anne would find herself awake before dawn, running through fields and ditches to a neighbour's house to get help as a terrible darkness descended on the family farm. This is a tragic story that saw a family torn apart as their home...

On St Patrick’s weekend 2024, 23-year-old Kelly Lynch travelled from her home in Armagh to Monaghan to support her boyfriend after a sudden death in his family. Two nights later, on the walk home from the pub in the town, on the Friday night of a busy bank holiday, Kelly disappeared. She was found in the Ulster Canal on the Sunday morning. Gardaí said Kelly had drowned and quickly confirmed they w...

The prime suspect walks free for the murder of Nora Sheehan after the death of the pathologist left the DPP's case unable to proceed to trial.  In this second chapter of a two-part investigation, John Sweetman looks at how four decades after Nora Sheehan’s disappearance and death in 1981, advances in forensic technology breathed new life into a long-dormant investigation.   In this...

In June 1981, Nora Sheehan left the South Infirmary Hospital in Cork and disappeared into the night. In the hours that followed, she was seen by witnesses walking alone after midnight, a familiar figure on dark roads and quiet streets. Days later, her battered body was discovered dumped in woodland far from the city. Her murder shocked Cork and marked the beginning of a case that would stretch acr...

The Walsh house in rural Connemara is quiet by 4am on the 22nd of June 1985. Earlier in the night it was full of people celebrating the brief return of two family members who had emigrated. But now the friends, neighbours and even the local Gardaí who had attended the party have all dispersed. So, when 14 year old Jacquie Walsh wakes up in the middle of the night the only person she sees is her mo...

Gardaí are called to a house in north Dublin, where they make a grim discovery. 72-year-old Marie Dillon has been found murdered in a violent attack inside her home. As investigations begin, it becomes clear there are no suspects and no obvious clues. In this episode of Lines of Enquiry, John Sweetman revisits the case that brought him face to face with his first murder scene at just 26 years of a...

On 4 January 2005, 11-year-old Robert Holohan left his home to play on his bike in Midleton, Co Cork and never returned. What began as a desperate search for a missing boy quickly became one of the most emotionally charged murder investigations Ireland had ever witnessed. Thousands turned out to look for him. Gardaí deployed every resource available. For a week, the country hoped against hope. The...

A sinister, disturbing handwritten letter arrives into Garda HQ. It has been sent anonymously to a school in the midlands. There are 23 pages, promising terrible crimes to come, and detailing the writer’s twisted plans to abduct and kill teenage girls. Soon after, two more arrive – again sent to schools across the Irish midlands. Gardai then realise this is not their first encounter with the anony...

When 27-year-old Mary Gough was found dead in her home in Balbriggan in 2001, it looked like a tragic accident. Gardaí were called to what appeared to be a fall down the stairs. But as investigators examined the scene, small details began to raise doubts, marks that didn’t fit, timelines that didn’t match, and a story that started to change. In this episode, former Garda forensic detective John Sw...

Former Garda detective and expert crime scene investigator, John Sweetman presents Lines of Enquiry, a GoLoud Original true-crime podcast examining some of Ireland’s most compelling crimes, uncovering how evidence, chance, and persistence can bring answers, and sometimes only more questions.