Authorities now speculate that Kyran Durnin, a young eight-year-old, may have been murdered approximately two years ago. Notably, in 2022, the lad was withdrawn from his local school, leading officials to believe he’d relocated to an educational institution in Northern Ireland. It is this shift that investigators think allowed the boy’s disappearance to go undetected for such an extended period. A source claimed, “It’s as if the lad slipped through the system”.
Kyran’s missing person’s report, filed in late August alongside his mother Dayla Durnin (24), from their Drogheda, Co Louth residence, stated that he was last seen on August 28th around 11 in the morning. However, the Gardaí now suspect that Kyran was not accompanying his mother at the time of her disappearance. Ms. Durnin was soon found without her son in the UK.
There is a prevailing belief that Kyran may have met his untimely end sometime in 2022. The last acknowledged sighting of the boy by the gardaí occurred in May of the same year. Around this period, Kyran left his school, which caused authorities to believe he was switching to a different primary school located in Northern Ireland.
The extended absence of this young child from the education system remained unnoticed by the Irish officials. This situation led the Child and Family Agency, Tusla, to raise concerns regarding his well-being and reach out to family members. Garda members expressed the need for queries regarding child protection measures implemented in the case, while primarily focusing on the ongoing murder investigation and the search for the boy’s remains.
Historically, Tusla had some interactions with the boy’s family, however there were no direct red flags indicating the boy might be a victim of maltreatment. The organisation is actively cooperating with the gardaí and has provided a significant volume of documentation related to the child under a District Court warrant.
The authorities are convinced that Kyran’s death occurred sometime before his disappearance was reported, despite the fact that no body has been found and that no arrests have been made yet. They suspect at least two individuals carry crucial knowledge about the young boy’s demise. It’s notable that someone close to Kyran has altered their account multiple times since his official complaint of disappearance in August.
The case has been escalated to a high-priority status with substantial resources being channelled towards its resolution. The authorities express conviction that there’ll be headway in the near term. The formal commencement of a murder investigation, they hope, would propel those believed to possess vital details to collaborate. This would also provide the officials with broader legal authority and extra resources to obtain evidence.
A special room for handling incidents has been set up at the Drogheda Garda station, overseen by a senior investigating officer.
A timeline reveals Kyran was removed from school in 2022, with officials under the impression he was transferring to a school in Northern Ireland. The last confirmed sighting of Kyran Durnin by the gardaí was in May 2022. Kyran and his mother, Dayla Durnin, were officially reported missing on August 30th, 2024, with the last known sighting two days prior at 11pm.
Dayla Durnin was found safe and sound in the UK in September 2024, but there was no trace of Kyran. This led the authorities to start considering the possibility that he had been murdered several months earlier. On October 16th, 2024, in an uncommon move, the gardaí declared the missing person case as a murder investigation even though no remains had been found, stating that they had found no proof to assume Kyran might still be alive.