Tina was raised by her grandparents, thinking her mother was a sister
GROWING up in small-town Ireland, Tina Satchwell’s early life might appear complicated at first glance but, in reality, was fairly typical of its time.
For many years, she believed her grandparents were her parents, and her mother her sister.
Tina, however, enjoyed a happy childhood – growing up in a close-knit area of neat terraced homes in Fermoy. Her family kept a donkey in their garden and the stray cats on the street would congregate at the house knowing they would be fed. She remained very close to her family growing up and would visit them multiple times a week before she vanished.
The friends she had as a child still live in the area and talk fondly of happy summers playing on the streets. Her disappearance one year ago this month came as a terrible shock. Before she vanished Tina would travel from Youghal, where she lived with her husband, to her childhood home, where her uncle Frankie Dingivan still lives, two or three times a week. She would chat with her old neighbours, feed the birds kept in the garden and the stray cats lying lazily on the windowsill.
One neighbour told how Tina was brought up by her grandparents. ‘Tina was brought by Florrie and Paddy, who are both dead now and she found out in later years that they were her grandparents and who she thought was her sister was her mother.’
A close friend added that her disappearance came as a shock. ‘There is not a bit of badness in her. When she married and moved out of St Bernard’s Place, she would send a Christmas card to my mother every year. That’s Tina. As children we would hang out together at the end of the road outside the funeral parlour and she was always great fun to be around.’
Directly across the road from Tina’s childhood home is Joe Flood. He told how everyone knew Tina and she never had a falling out with anyone.
‘You wouldn’t recognise her if you saw childhood pictures. She was here nearly every day before she vanished. She would visit Frankie and feed the animals. He is missing her terribly and is still hoping she will walk through the door.’
Tina was a quiet teenager and never had a boyfriend in the area. She moved to England with her sister Teresa when she got a little older and it was there she met her husband Richard. ‘Richard was her first love. He was well known here because he would visit often with Tina. He’s a lovely man, very quiet and polite.’
A 50-minute drive from Fermoy is the seaside town of Youghal where Tina and Richard’s three-storey, terraced marital home sits next to the harbour. Locals spoke in whispers as they passed by the house. Some knew the couple to see, but few said they knew them well.
Almost one year on from the disappearance of Tina, the focus has moved to a woodland next to the five-star Castlemartyr Resort, – around a 20minute drive from the couple’s home. Her husband, Richard, has spoken publicly several times since gardaí sealed off Mitchel’s Wood earlier this week and, on Thursday, he visited the site. He told how he was desperate for answers. Speaking to TV3 News, he said he was ‘hoping and praying’ Tina would be located safe and well. ‘I am not a religious man but, at night, I am having a little prayer that everything as regards this just turns up nothing. I feel sick – I felt sick driving down here from Youghal and I know it is only a short distance. ‘You know, it is a place we have never been – we drove past it on numerous occasions, to go to Ballycotton or Garryvoe. ‘Obviously, while I was working I had deliveries that I had up around this road but this is the first time I ever stopped off here.’ Mr Satchwell said he was very upset at the thought of what the gardaí were looking for in the woodland. ‘Just the basic thought that, it is a possibility, no matter how small, that my wife could be behind them barriers.
‘I am sick in the stomach – I would say I have not had three hours’ sleep since Sunday morning.’ He told how he was hoping the search comes to nothing.
‘I find it difficult because after getting a phone call from An Garda Síochána on Sunday I know what is happening behind me, by those barriers there.
‘I am trying to fill myself with hope – I have people say to me, how will you cope if it does turn out to be... my answer to that is I won’t be able to cope. [Every night] I am praying and hoping that, like the search in Youghal, it all comes to nothing.’
He said the hope Tina will be found safe and well is what keeps him going. The English-born truck driver insisted he does not believe he is a suspect in the case.
‘They’ve [gardaí] not voiced it [that he is a suspect] – but their actions are different. I went into the guards of my own accord, I made a statement and I’m not ashamed to say I was an emotional mess, I did more crying than talking. No, I did originally [think he was a suspect] but then originally everything was all raw with her being gone, the house was searched. I was confused and now I feel that I am not [a suspect].
‘Anything that the guards ask for I am providing.’
Speaking at her home in Fermoy this week, Tina’s mum Mary Anne Dingivan said she did not have anything to say and the family in general did not wish to comment.
‘It’s a place we’ve never been’
‘I am trying to fill myself with hope’