The family of a Limerick man whose remains were found washed up in Clare 18-years-ago have appealed for information about his death.
Aengus “Gussie” Shanahan was last seen on Old School House Lane after leaving Coopers bar on St Joseph’s Street in February 2000.
Remains found washed up in Quay Island, Bunratty, the following year were identified as the 20-year-old's in 2017 following advancements in DNA testing.
His sister Grainne told RTE’s Today with Sean O’Rourke: “We genuinely believe that there are people out there that have information."
Years after his disappearance, his father Bob got a phone call from someone who he believes knew something about the circumstances surrounding his son’s death.
He said: “After one of the appeals about about nine years ago I got a phone call on a Saturday and it said I have a phone, it's broken so you wont be able to trace it”.
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Mr Shanahan said that the caller told him: “I’ve to give you some information”, but that the phone was “breaking up the whole time”.
He continued: “Basically the message was that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“It went too far whatever happened and they threw him over some wall or something”.
Grainne appealed to the man who had the “strength and the courage” to make the call that day to contact them again with further information.
She appealed for those who provided information in the past to contact them again as some of it has “gotten a but sketchy over the years”
She said: “We have pieces of the puzzle but we need more pieces to put that puzzle together to get the answers to what happened to him that night”.
Bob said his wife Nancy found the situation very hard to deal with as he said the pair were “very, very close” and that she later died of “a broken heart”.
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He said: “When it happened in actual fact it brought around a stroke with the worry and thinking about Aengus.”
The family didn’t tell her when they heard of potential sightings of him as Bob explained the “downside was way worse than the upside when we would come back with no information”.
After the remains were identified the family held a funeral for Gussie which Grainne described as “bitter sweet”.
She said they “had to park a lot of emotions” and that “the main priority” for the funeral was a celebration of his life.
“We wanted to make sure that people didn't just remember the negativity that had been attached to him for the last 18 years”.
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