The niece of the partner of Patrick ‘Patsy’ O’Sullivan, who was missing from Co Cork over three decades ago, has revealed how she came across the case.
Mr O’Sullivan disappeared when he was 35 years old in 1992 from Co Cork. Despite numerous appeals for information surrounding his disappearance, it emerged earlier this week that Mr O’Sullivan had only died two years ago, and had been living in the UK since his disappearance.
Mr O’Sullivan’s brother revealed that his brother had taken the name Patrick Aldridge – the same surname as a partner of his who died in 2022.
His partner’s niece, Nikki, has since come forward to reveal that she was the one who put two and two together after she read an article about who turned out to be her uncle’s partner.
‘I found out yesterday that he’s been a missing person since 1992 — and so did the rest of the family,’ Nikki told Liveline, explaining that she had read an article about him.
After seeing the photos of Patsy used in the missing person’s appeals, she had realised that she was looking at photos of her uncle’s partner when he was younger.
‘I went straight onto the Internet and typed “Patrick O’Sullivan missing person,”‘ Nikki explained. ‘My screen was flooded with pictures of Pat; I was just like, “whoa, okay, this is real.”
‘I come across the [Gardaí] missing persons page, and I phoned them. I was shaking; it was so surreal. They answered the phone, and I said “you’ve got a missing person’s article on your page, and it’s my uncle. I need to get in touch with his family.”‘ Nikki went on to say that his name was Patrick Aldridge — the name he took after he disappeared — before revealing that it was the man who’d been missing for three decades.
After doing some Facebook sleuthing, Nikki found Patsy’s brother, Gerry, and reached out to him on Tuesday.
‘My phone never stopped yesterday, so I eventually saw the message,’ Gerry explained to Kieran Cuddihy. ‘I messaged her back to speak with her, [but] she had a hospital appointment and she’d be 20 minutes. That was the longest 20 minutes I had to wait in my whole life.
‘To speak to her was the most incredible moment I’ve had in a very long time. It gave me so much peace and solace,’ Gerry said of his brother’s niece. ‘She’s just an incredible lady, and as I said to her yesterday, she might have lost an uncle, but she gained two more on this side.’
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Patsy had emigrated to England without telling his family back in 1992, when he met his partner Stephen, who passed away in 1992. Patsy himself would pass away in 2024; his family never knowing what had happened to him.
‘The information was going to be very little [as to] what we could gather [following Stephen’s passing],’ Gerry said that he was told by Gardaí on Monday.
‘Speaking to Stephen’s family was going to give us some bit of closure to what kind of life he had, and what his life was for the last 30 years. I got that in bucketloads from speaking to Nikki.’
While the missing person’s case of Patsy O’Sullivan/Aldridge ended being a bittersweet one, Gerry revealed that he has since gained a family member in Nikki — and is planning to visit her in the UK in the near future.
‘I can’t wait for the moment we get off the plane to meet this girl,’ Gerry said. ‘She’s given me so much peace.’
