Family of Jo Jo Dullard 'reassured' by Garda Commissioner's comments during latest search
Sarah Slater
The family of missing Kilkenny woman Jo Jo Dullard have said they feel “reassured” by how Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly is dealing with the latest search for their sister and Kildare woman Deirdre Jacob in Co Wicklow.
A search linked to the murders of the two missing women has been ongoing for the past week at Castleruddery Upper a site between Dunlavin and Baltinglass.
The search operation is being led by the serious crime review team.
Gardaí have been searching a location between Dunlavin and Baltinglass in Wicklow since last Monday and are using an excavator in the operation aimed at locating the missing woman. Both are the subject of murder investigations.
Dullard’s family, led by her sister Kathleen Bergin, said that their “thoughts and prayers” are with the teams carrying out the search.
“It is reassuring to hear the Garda Commissioner say in a recent media report that there is no rush on this search and they have got everything they need to do the work there.”
In a statement on the Jo Jo Dullard Missing social media page, the Dullard family added that they “would like to express our heartfelt thanks for all your wonderful support. Thank you for your kind words, prayers and keeping a candle lit for JoJo and Deirdre.”
The family once again appealed to “those people who have information, no matter how small, to please, please come forward” and contact
Naas Garda station on 045-884 300, the Garda confidential line 1800 666 111 and the missing persons helpline 1800 442 552
Dullard, 21, disappeared from Moone, Co Kildare at 11.37 pm, while hitch-hiking on November 9th 1995.
She had missed the last direct bus back to Kilkenny and had been hitching lifts from Naas, Co Kildare, where she managed to get a bus to.
The young woman was using a public phone in Moone when she told a friend, Mary Cullinane, that a car had stopped and she was going to get a lift. That was the last known sighting of her.
Dullard was the youngest of five siblings. Her father, John, died before she was born, and her mother, Nora, died in 1983 from cancer.
Since her disappearance, her sister Mary Phelan, died in 2018, not knowing what happened to her.
Jacob, 18, was last seen outside her home in Newbridge on July 28, 1998. She was a teaching student in the UK who had returned to see her parents during a short trip back to Ireland.
On the day she was last seen, Jacob had walked into Newbridge town to get a bank draft to send to a college friend in London for their rent deposit.
At 2.14 pm, she was observed on CCTV walking on Main Street, Newbridge, and shortly after was observed in the AIB bank.
At 2.26 pm, Jacob was observed again on CCTV queuing in the Newbridge Post Office and at 2.32 pm was seen on CCTV speaking with a friend outside the Post Office on Main Street.
The last-known recording of Jacob on CCTV was at 2.35 pm, walking outside the PTSB Bank on Main Street. She was last seen shortly after 3 pm on that day.
Excavations at a quarry on the Wicklow/Kildare border continue as part of the investigations into the murder of the two women, who disappeared within three years of one another in the 1990s.
Extensive amounts of soil have been removed at the dig site after credible information was received by gardai that a number of cars were buried there, which may bare clues to the disappearance of either of the women.
In October 2020, gardaí upgraded the investigation into her disappearance and that of Kildare woman Deirdre Jacob to a murder probe.
A three-week-long large-scale search almost five years ago of Usk Little in the Kildare/Wicklow - a woodland area was investigated by gardai after fresh information came to light.
For a second time in November and December 2024, a major garda excavation of land near Grangecon in Co Wicklow was searched for three-and-a-half weeks in an effort to locate her body or any evidence to show she may have been there.
Fianna Fáil TD John McGuinness, who has campaigned alongside the extended Dullard and Bergin families for more than 30 years to keep the Kilkenny woman’s disappearance in the public domain, said he is “very happy” to see that gardaí are still “doing their best” to locate her remains.
McGuinness continued: “Some person is giving gardai the information they need to keep carrying out searches for Jo Jo. They are now obviously searching key areas.
“The expectations of Jo Jo’s family are heightened, and I really do hope that there is a positive outcome despite the horribleness of this whole situation.”
