Skeletal remains found in east Cork thought to be human

Gardaí have found what are believed to be human remains in east county Cork.

They were found by a garda with a search dog on the main Midleton to Whitegate road, around 5km from the village of Whitegate just after midday.

The remains were skeletal and the scene has been preserved by gardaí.

A post-mortem examination on the skeletal remains will get under way on Tuesday morning at the City Morgue at Cork University Hospital.

Assistant State Pathologist Dr Margot Bolster together with Chief Superintendent Michael Comyns this afternoon visited the wooded area on the outskirts of Rostellan village in east Cork where the human remains were found.

This evening, the remains were removed by undertakers and brought to the mortuary at CUH for tomorrow’s scheduled post-mortem examination.

The site remains cordoned off tonight, with traffic restrictions remaining in place overnight. Post-mortem examination results are expected to be available by early afternoon tomorrow.

Identification is likely to take some time and will rely on dental or DNA records. It could take up to 48 hours for DNA results.

However, RTÉ News understands that gardaí are investigating if they are the remains of 47-year-old Kieran Quilligan, who went missing from Cork city centre last September.

Gardaí had conducted an extensive search of farmland on the edge of the Courtstown Industrial Estate in Little Island over several days later that month.

However, that search ended without finding Mr Quilligan’s body.

Mr Quilligan was last seen on the evening of 1 September last year, leaving a premises on Anderson’s Quay in Cork in the company of another man.

Using CCTV, gardaí tracked his movements from there to St Finnbarr’s Place, close to St Finnbarr’s Cathedral and the South Channel of the River Lee.

Since then, there has been no sighting of him and, from the outset, significant resources were allocated to the garda investigation into Mr Quilligan’s disappearance.

Three weeks after he was last seen, the garda investigation moved to a farm at the edge of the Courtstown Industrial Estate in Little Island, more than 10km from the city in east Cork.

An extensive area of farmland and waste ground was searched. A local Coast Guard team conducted searches of the coastline. Specially-trained dogs and their handlers from the Civil Defence K9 team in Cork and the Search and Rescue Dog Association also assisted.

Throughout the search, members of Mr Quilligan’s family maintained a vigil at the garda cordon, awaiting news.

However, the search ended without any trace of Mr Quilligan being found.

The remains found this morning were close to Whitegate, around 25km south-east of Little Island and 35km where Kieran Quilligan was last seen on CCTV in Cork City.

It is understood a Garda family liaison officer made contact with Mr Quilligan’s family shortly after the discovery, to keep them informed of the investigation and its findings.

Additional reporting: Jennie O’Sullivan