Thirty years on: ‘We need to bring her home’ say Jo Jo Dullard’s family

The sister of Josephine “Jo Jo” Dullard has said “she’s out there somewhere and we need to bring her home”, as she issued a fresh appeal for information on the 30th anniversary of her disappearance.

Kathleen Bergin was the one who reported her younger sister missing after she failed to return home to Callan, Co Kilkenny, from a night out in Dublin on November 9 1995.

Five years ago, Gardai said they believed the 21-year-old had been killed and reclassified their investigation as a murder inquiry.

In a video released by Gardai on Sunday, Ms Bergin said: “Somebody has information out there.

“Did they hear somebody talking?

“Did they see something that night?

“And we would ask them to look into their hearts, to please find the strength and courage to come forward, tell us what they know – even if they think it’s something very small, it could be the piece of the jigsaw we’re looking for.”

In a heartfelt plea, Ms Bergin said: “We need Jo Jo to finish her journey home and we would ask them, whatever was holding them back from coming forward, we hope their circumstances have changed.”

She described Jo Jo as a young woman who was “full of life” and who had “a great bunch of friends”, but said “that day she went to Dublin our lives changed forever”.

Ms Bergin added: “Little did she know going to Dublin that day she wouldn’t get to come back home again to us and get to see her niece and nephews, because they thought of her like a bigger sister.

“It’s had a huge impact on our family.”

Speaking about the night Jo Jo disappeared, Ms Bergin said she often wonders “what went through her mind when she realised: ‘I’m not going to get back home again.’

“I can only imagine the fear she was going through.”

Gardai say Jo Jo travelled to Dublin on November 9 1995 and socialised in Bruxelles Bar, just off Grafton Street in Dublin City Centre that night.

She missed her last bus home and instead boarded a bus to Naas, County Kildare at 10pm with the intention of hitch hiking the rest of the way home to Callan, Co Kilkenny.

Ms Dullard hitched two lifts in Kildare, one from Naas to a slip road on the M9 motorway at Kilcullen, and another at around 11.15pm to Moone.

There she phoned her friend Mary Cullinan at 11.37pm and while on the phone told Mary a car had stopped for her and that she was going to take the lift.

That phone call was the last known interaction with Jo Jo.

In November 2020 An Garda Síochána confirmed that her disappearance was now classified as a murder investigation.

Last year a man in his 50s was arrested in connection with the investigation and was later released without charge.

In December 2024, Gardai searched an area of open ground in Co Wicklow, but said they would not comment on the searches for operational reasons.

The youngest of five siblings, Jo Jo’s father, John, died before she was born and her mother Nora died from cancer in 1983.

Ms Bergin says her sister “deserves to be brought home and laid to rest beside Mam and Dad”.

In their appeal for information the Gardai have focused on the cassette player, a Sanyo model MGP21, Jo Jo had with her that night.

They have asked for anyone who has seen it or received one from a friend or person who could not say where they got it from to come forward.

They are also appealing for information from anyone who hitchhiked in the area around Moone in the weeks around Jo Jo’s disappearance, or who gave a lift to a hitchhiker around that time, to speak to the investigating team.

Gardai say they are “resolute” in their determination to bring her killer to justice.