Forensic experts search Co Meath bog for remains of IRA victim Joe Lynskey Searches have begun in an Irish bog for another victim of the IRA who was killed and secretly buried during the Troubles. Specialist forensic experts have been called to the same bog in Co Meath, north of Dublin, where last month they discovered the remains of Brendan Megraw, from Belfast. The fresh search concerns the disappearance of a former monk and ex-IRA member, Joe Lynskey. He vanished in 1972 and it was not until 2010 that the IRA admitted it had killed and covertly buried him. In both cases, the IRA claimed that the men were working secretly for the security forces. The investigators are using ground-penetrating radar to help to locate Lynskey's remains in the Oristown bog. Lynskey is among "the disappeared"; the IRA killed and then hid their bodies during the conflict. There are still six people missing presumed dead, five of whom were murdered by the Provisional IRA. The sixth, Seamus Ruddy, was shot dead and buried in secret in France by the Irish National Liberation Army. A representative of the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims" Remains (ICLVR) - the organisation set up to find the disappeared - confirmed on Friday that new information had prompted the search for his remains. ICLVR commissioner Frank Murray said: "The commission is now starting preliminary work, at a very early stage I must emphasise, in relation to Joe Lynskey." He added: "Preliminary work has started and it's ongoing as we speak. It involves scanning the ground, but there is no date or idea exactly when we could do something in the way of a dig there. With the ground radar operation you need to get that data analysed scientifically and see if there is anything of interest, are there any anomalies in the ground that you have surveyed and then follow through on those. So, we have to take it one step at a time. The missing man's niece, Maria Lynskey, said on Friday she was heartened that new searches were taking place. "Joe was the first of the disappeared, in 1972, so he is 42 years missing," she said. We didn't know until about four or five years ago that he was a disappeared [person] - we thought he was in America. That was a terrible shock. During the Troubles, the IRA circulated false stories about many of the disappeared, claiming they had simply fled Northern Ireland during the worst years of the violence. The organisation put out a false story in west Belfast that Jean McConville, a mother of 10, had abandoned her children and run off with a British soldier in December 1972. In fact, McConville, a widow, was abducted from her home in the Divis Flats complex in front of many of her children, driven across the Irish border and shot dead in Co Louth. She was then buried in secret so that the IRA would not be accused of killing her. Former Belfast IRA commander and hunger striker Brendan Hughes has claimed on the Boston College tapes project that Gerry Adams gave the order for McConville to be disappeared in 1972 to prevent any negative publicity for the movement. Hughes said that at the time Adams held a senior position in the Belfast IRA. Adams, who is currently in New York on a Sinn Fein fundraising trip that included a $500-per-table dinner on Thursday at a top Manhattan hotel, has always denied any connection to McConville's murder and disappearance. He has also denied he was ever in the IRA. The family of Megraw are planning his funeral, 36 years after he vanished from his home in west Belfast. The ICLVR confirmed last week that the remains found in the Meath bog were those of the 23-year-old, who disappeared in 1978. His brother, Kieran, thanked all those who had supported the family through the years. "It is hard to believe that we are eventually getting Brendan home next week and we will be able to bury him in Glenavy [Co Antrim] with his mum and dad," he said.