Ireland's Vanishing Triangle

Ireland's Vanishing Triangle^[1][2][3] is a term commonly used in the Irish media when referring to a number of high-profile disappearances of Irish women from the late 1980s to the late 1990s. Several other women were also murdered within the triangle and their cases remain unsolved as well.^[4] All of the cases appeared to share some common characteristics. The women's ages range from their late-teens to late-30s, they disappeared inexplicably and suddenly, and no substantial clues or evidence of their fate has ever been found despite large-scale searches and campaigns by the Gardaí to find them. Gardaí believe their remains are likely to be buried in remote fields, bogs and forests. The triangle is in the eastern part of the island, roughly the boundaries of Leinster, in an 80-mile area outside Dublin.^[1]

Due to similarities in the cases, a popular hypothesis is that they may be the result of a serial killer or killers being active in the area during this period.^[1] The cases of these missing women feature in the Irish media periodically and the disappearances have been the subject in a number of unsolved crime documentaries.^[5] Gardaí set up an investigation task force in September 1998 called 'Operation Trace'^[6] to focus on the unsolved disappearances and homicides, but to date this has failed to turn up any substantial clues as to the fate of the women despite a €10,000 reward offered for information resulting in the recovery of a body.^[1]