Disappearance of Philip Cairns

In May 2016 a woman contacted Gardaí to tell them that she suspected former DJ and convicted paedophile Eamonn Cooke of having killed Philip Cairns. Gardaí questioned Cooke and he was reported to have confirmed some details, but not to have revealed the location of Philip's body. He died in June 2016.

In August 2016 it was announced that DNA samples taken from Philips' schoolbag did not match Cooke, but he had not been ruled out as a suspect. Gardaí also sought to identify two people who may have left Philips' schoolbag in the laneway.

His father, Phil, died on 6 July 2014 at Tallaght Hospital.

In May 2009, a stretch of private, wooded south Dublin land near a golf club on the M50 motorway was searched by investigators. On 6 May, the area was sealed off and vegetation was cleared. Specialist equipment and finger tip examination techniques were used in an attempt to detect evidence of soil movement. A second search was carried out around 50 metres away later that month. An elderly woman from Dublin told Gardaí that Cairns was murdered and later buried at both sites. She said that a man she was in a relationship with some time before had confessed to killing Philip. Despite the involvement of geophysicists, the searches both proved to be a failure. The man is now a pensioner who lives in Rathfarnham but cannot be charged due to lack of evidence.

Philip's family have issued numerous appeals for information. A reconstruction took place in 2007 and was later televised on RTÉ One, while a reward of €10,000 has also been offered. The book, When Heaven Waits, published in 2007, featured an interview with Philip's mother. Nobody has ever been arrested. The case remains open.

In October 2006, the Cairns family issued an appeal for information on the twentieth anniversary of the disappearance. They said they had not given up all hope of finding him alive. A special Mass was also held to mark the occasion. A further appeal for information was launched following the twenty-first anniversary of Philip's disappearance in 2007, when it emerged that over 50 people had approached investigators individually and had provided new lines of inquiry. That month saw a reconstruction of Philip's typical school route being broadcast on RTÉ One's Crimecall television series and the Irish Crimestoppers Trust offering a €10,000 reward for information. Within one day, over 80 people had been in contact with Gardaí or Crimestoppers in what was described as a "tremendous response".

Philip Cairns (born 1 September 1973) disappeared on the afternoon of 23 October 1986 while walking back to school in south Dublin, Ireland. The 13-year-old schoolboy left his home in Ballyroan to return to school, but has not been seen since. A large-scale investigation was carried out but no trace of the boy has ever been found. His disappearance is now treated as a high-profile child murder case, the only similar incident in Ireland being the murder of Robert Holohan in January 2005. It is one of the most high-profile disappearances in recent Irish history.