Ballinamore, Leitrim mentioned as possible burial site in Shergar Documentary

Ballinamore, Co Leitrim was highlighted as a possible burial site in a new two-part series, Shergar: The Racehorse and the IRA, aired on Virgin Media last week.

In the second episode, attention turned firmly to Ballinamore, where presenter Derek Thompson travels to Ballinamore and walks through dense forestry on Slieve an Iarainn mountain. Standing among isolated ditches and rugged terrain, he remarked: “When I look around here I wonder.. No one would ever find you out here for 100 years. This is the bleakest of bleak places, I know the IRA dumped bodies in here and hid arms but look at it it's unbelievable." He doesn't shy away from strongly suggesting the horse may have been buried in the area following his disappearance — a theory long told locally but never proven.

The programme charted Shergar’s rise to global fame, including his landmark win at the Epsom Derby, before delving into the mystery that followed his abduction at the height of political tensions in Ireland.

Through interviews, archive footage and expert analysis, the documentary examined how Shergar’s fate became the subject of decades of speculation across Ireland and beyond.

For viewers in Leitrim, the focus on Ballinamore brought a powerful local dimension to the story, placing the county at the centre of one of the most enduring unsolved mysteries in modern Irish history.

Despite renewed attention from the series, the ultimate fate of Shergar remains unknown, with no definitive evidence ever uncovered to confirm where the racehorse ended up.

One of the photographs sent by the thieves during the negotiations, as proof that Shergar was still alive