A Waterford man whose brother went missing on December 15, 1947 says he still prays they will be reunited someday.
Frank O'Neill, the last surviving relative of James 'Jimmy' O'Neill says he prays twice a day for the past 76 years hoping his brother returns home.
Jimmy is Ireland's longest missing person and has been missing from his home in Waterford when he was just 16.
Frank O'Neill was just four when his brother Jimmy who worked for a shipping company that operated between Waterford and Liverpool at the time vanished.
The missing man would have turned 92 last month if he was still alive, the Irish Mirror reports.
Although Frank admits that is is almost impossible to find his brother now, he retains a "glimmer of hope" seeing him again.
Over the years, the 80-year-old Frank has heard theories about what could have happened to his broker. One theory is that he stowed away to the US while in Liverpool working.
Another theory posited is that Jimmy settled with the then thriving community in Liverpool when he read there.
🔔 | Name of Ireland's longest missing person engraved on family headstone in Waterford..
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Frank was born to a family of seven and he was the youngest. The Irish Mirror further reports that 'he is still haunted by a very distant and cloudy memory shortly after Jimmy disappeared, when he recalls being in the school grounds and seeing a man staring at him from the outside railings'.
The 80-year-old is said to something think that man might have been his brother coming to say a final goodbye.
Jimmy's name now engraved on the family headstone in St. Mary's Cemetery in Ballygunner in Co. Waterford. The words 'Gone But Never Forgotten' is inscribed on it.
Speaking ahead of Friday's anniversary of Jimmy's disappearance, Frank was quoted as saying by the Irish Mirror: "I've got to keep searching for my brother, I really can't give up. I was up at Missing Persons' week recently and I still pray for him at least twice every day.
"I was the youngest in my family, and I don't remember Jimmy well. But I'll never forget the sadness it brought to my family. My parents never got over his disappearance. It broke their hearts and they took that to their graves.
"I really don't know for sure if Jimmy got on a ship or not, because I've never had a good lead. But I'm the last of my family still alive and I can't stop searching for answers."
He also said: "It's very unlikely Jimmy's still alive, but it would be my dearest dream to learn that he was and to be reunited with him again. I'll never give up hope and I'll never stop praying for him."
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