Innocent Landscapes is the perfectly chosen title of a set of photographs by David Farrell, which show postcard-worthy Irish scenes at which digs were undertaken in the late 1990s to find the remains of the Irish "disappeared" i.e. people kidnapped and presumed murdered by the IRA, but whose remains had never been found. The IRA provided some information to help locate the remains, but at that point memories had deteriorated over the intervening decades.
The search for the body in the most notorious case, the execution of mother of 10, Jean McConville, was unsuccessful, but the remains have now apparently been located near where the original search took place. It will take weeks to confirm the identity, but significant circumstantial evidence indicates that the McConvilles will finally be able to have a proper funeral. Mrs McConville was murdered for having tended to a British soldier dying outside her door.
Some of Farrell's photographs are reproduced on this German site [busted link -- try this]; the photos themselves are currently on exhibit at Glasgow's Gallery of Modern Art. They perfectly encapsulate the capacity for casual brutality amid pastoral beauty. The final picture on the website shows the beach near where the body was found.
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