July 5, 2003 was meant to be a happy occasion. Peter Gallagher spent it celebrating a family christening, surrounded by relatives and friends. But for Peter’s family, who are from Donaghmede, it is a day that will be remembered for as long as they live, for all the wrong reasons.

“Peter got home from the party at about midnight,” says his mother, Treena, recalling the Saturday evening in question. “He had a bit of an argument with his dad, and then stormed out.”
That was the last time the Gallagher family saw Peter.
He had never seemed like someone who would walk out abruptly on his loved ones. The family say that the 24-year-old had always been close to his family. “He once went away travelling,” says his sister Aideen, “and came home after three months because he was homesick. He would never come in and cause a fight. It was totally out of character.”
While he had always seemed happy, tragedy had recently encroached on Peter’s life. Over a short period of time, he had lost a number of his friends, in quick succession. “There was a lot that went on in his life around that time,” his father, Seán Gallagher, reflects now. “A lot going on in his head. He was in a bit of a depression; looking back, you could see it in him.”
Perhaps that’s why alarm bells started ringing. “I panicked the next day,” Treena says matter-of-factly. “Something told me – call it instinct.” She smiles. “He’d always come home for his dinner, no matter where he was. He had always been a typical boy...”
On the morning of Tuesday, July 8, the Gallaghers contacted the police.

While the Gardaí receive thousands of missing person reports every year, the vast majority are quickly and quietly resolved. Perhaps that’s why Brenda Fields, of the Missing Persons Bureau, is so eager to address the biggest misconception surrounding the reporting of a missing person.
“There’s a very common myth that you have to wait 24 hours before reporting somebody as missing,” she says. “I think that belief comes from TV shows, to be honest. That’s completely incorrect. The sooner you report, the better, as far as we’re concerned.”
Time, then, is of the essence. Rapid response is a large part of the reason why, of the 7,753 persons reported missing in 2013, just 16 cases currently remain unresolved.
An Garda Síochána provide information on ‘lost person behaviour’, which is offered as a guide to investigators appointed to oversee missing person cases. “The document profiles the type of behaviour that a missing person may engage in,” said a spokesperson. “For example, it looks at depression, suicide, and dementia/Alzheimer’s, and provides information on the effect the condition may have on a person. This information, along with the vital knowledge provided by the missing person’s family, will initiate the required response.”
Another, rarely-mentioned reality is that, in many cases, ‘disappearances’ take place of the person’s own volition. Author Claudia Carroll, who has researched the subject in great detail, told Hot Press last year that “well over 90% of people who go missing do so voluntarily, often because of depression or alcoholism or maybe financial worries. But in a frightening amount of cases, it’s because they just want to check out of their whole life.”
Inevitably, nowadays, the initial response involves the use of social media. While it is a powerful tool in spreading the word, there can sometimes be a tendency to resort to it in a knee jerk way, with numerous instances cropping up where perfectly innocent behaviour lands people in a ‘missing person’ scenario because of a friend’s tendency towards melodrama. It is not easy to get the balance right,especially in a world where privacy has become an increasingly foreign concept.
“The use of social media in society today is vast,” a Garda spokesperson told Hot Press, “and we have made steps to embrace this new technology. However, we recognise that we are still learning and adapting. We have seen how effective social media is when launching numerous Child Rescue Ireland Alerts – the alert system we have in place for child abductions. In that regard, social media has been of massive benefit in spreading the message of the abduction and seeking the public’s assistance in the child’s recovery.”
Twitter or Facebook didn’t exist when Peter disappeared, but the Gallagher family have latterly embraced online avenues to maintain awareness of the case. “It changed a lot of things,” says Aideen. “There’s people all over the country who are on the Facebook page, and over in England too. It’s great, the sheer amount of people you can reach out to.”
Though the Gallagher family refer to Peter’s disappearance as “like a cold case”, An Garda Síochána told Hot Press that each missing person investigation stays open and active until such time as the missing person is found. Indeed Aideen appeared on the latest edition of RTE’s Crimecall, making a dignified and emotional call for help in finding Peter. “There is a constant review process that is assigned to the Superintendent of the area the missing person is reported,” the Gardaí added. Their representative on the show made a point of repeatedly appealing directly to Peter to make contact...

Right now, all of that is of little consolation to the Gallagher family. In July, it will be 12 years since Peter’s disappearance. They desperately need to know where he is or what happened.
“You just want an answer,” Treena says, honestly. “It’s hard for his siblings too. They’ve grown up and have their own partners and lives. Aideen was only ten at the time, and Peter’s not here to share so many nice memories. Family occasions are very hard. It was his birthday a few days ago, and that was a hard day. He would have been 36.”
His sister, Susan, interjects: “He is 36.”
“I never thought he was dead,” adds Seán. “It’s not like he was caught up in drugs, or owed someone money, or anything like that. Someone knows where he is. He’s out there somewhere.” Without pausing, Sean slips into a direct appeal. It is heart-breaking to hear. “Just pick up the phone,” he says, “and let us know you’re alright. The longer he’s away, the harder it gets, but it’s time to act like an adult.”
Treena sighs a mother’s anguished sigh. “The police said at the time that, because he’s a grown man, he’s free to walk out and start a new life somewhere. They said it would be different if he was a child.
“But he’s still my child.”