Uncle of ‘Ireland’s Madeleine McCann’ Mary Boyle dies – the last person to see six-year-old alive before she disappeared

THE uncle of ‘Ireland’s Madeline McCann’ has died, sparking fears her mystery may never be solved.

Little Mary Boyle, who is often compared to missing Maddie, disappeared from her grandparents’ home in Donegal, on March 18, 1977.

And the six-year-old’s uncle Gerry Gallagher – who was the last known person to see Mary alive – died on Wednesday after a short illness.

Online sleuths have long suspected Gerry of her death, and are now calling for Gardai to search his property.

On a Justice for Mary Boyle Facebook page one wrote: “I am fuming that he didn’t have to face justice on this earth or reveal where Mary is.” 

Another added: “Hopefully the farm will be searched from top to bottom.

“Shame He never faced justice.”

Mary was accompanying her mum Ann’s brother Gerry to a neighbour’s house when she was last seen at 3.30pm on the day she vanished.

The pair were dropping back a ladder to a neighbour when Mary turned back halfway after they hit a small pool of water that was too deep for her to get through – just five minutes away from her grandparents’ house.

She was last seen by her uncle eating a packet of Tayto crisps, it was reported, and she’s never been seen since.

Gerry chatted to the neighbours after dropping back the ladder and returned to his parents’ house at 4.30pm.

A frantic search had already begun for the six-year-old.

The case is regularly compared to that of Brit Maddeline McCann who disappeared on May 3, 2007, from her bed in the family’s holiday apartment in Portugal.

Singer Margo O’Donnell, who is related to Mary Boyle, said she heard news of Gerry’s death from Mary’s twin sister Ann.

She told the Irish Independent: “I got the news from Mary’s twin he had passed away. It’s sad. It just brings everything back.

“It has been a terrible, terrible story. I knew Mary Boyle; I was privileged to know her. She was a beautiful lovely wee girl.

“I don’t want anyone to serve a day for Mary’s disappearance or her death.

“But I just want her to have a decent burial and proper resting place rather than lying up there in the mountain somewhere.”

Mary’s devastated mum Ann told before Christmas how she never gives up hope that her daughter will be found.

And 45 years on, she’s still shocked how something happened to her beloved little girl so close to her homeplace.

She told The Irish Sun: “It’s crazy to think that such a thing could happen —  I can’t believe that it happened where I was reared.

“I’m shocked since it happened because I mean I felt safe all my life and then this to happen to my wee girl.”

Mary lived with Ann, her father Charlie and siblings about 25km away from where she disappeared —  Kincasslagh in The Rosses.

And Ann said Mary “didn’t know the area”.

The Garda case file on Mary’s disappearance remains open and the family regularly keep in touch with their liaison officer.

Ann told us: “We still keep in touch with (the Gardai). There’s no lead —  we’ve never got a lead from the day Mary went missing we never got a lead of any type.”

However, Ann said that even after all this time she hasn’t given up on finding some clue as to what happened.

She said: “I still keep hoping that we’ll find something.”