Exclusive – The mother of missing Kyran Durnin has returned to Ireland from the UK and was seen ducking from cameras as she arrived at her family home in Drogheda.
Dayla Durnin’s mother Rhonda Byrne Tyson was seen getting out of her car, carrying a loaf of bread, before she opened the passenger door and assisted her daughter in scuttling into the house.(Image: Colin Keegan, Collins, Dublin)
This is the moment the mother of missing child Kyran Durnin ducked from our camera – as she’s returned to Ireland from the UK.
Our pictures show the moment Dayla Durnin was led into her mother’s home in Drogheda, Co Louth, keeping her head down throughout, as she tried to avoid being seen today.
Durnin’s mother Rhonda Byrne Tyson, who is young Kyran’s grandmother, was seen getting out of her car, carrying a loaf of bread, before she opened the passenger door and assisted her daughter in scuttling into the house.
Dayla, who has to date not commented on the baffling disappearance and presumed murder of her own six year old child, was seen crouching down behind a bush and a fence in order to evade being snapped. We subsequently knocked on the door but received no answer.
It comes after she had moved to Ipswich where she was seen in the company of an older man in December of last year, and refused to speak. She is believed to have been living there since August of last year, and has only returned to this country in recent days.
Dayla Durnin, the mother of missing Kyran Durnin, ducks into her mother’s house in Drogheda this afternoon(Image: Colin Keegan, Collins, Dublin)
She is now residing in the home which her own mother Ms Tyson had previously claimed she last saw Kyran in August of 2024. Gardai launched a murder probe into the disappearance of Kyran in October of last year, after establishing evidence that he had not been seen in public since 2022.
It is suspected that the child was killed and that his death was covered up for over two years, with a “decoy” child even being used in a meeting with Tusla, the State’s Child and Family Agency, to try and keep the ruse going.
Dayla was initially declared missing in August but was subsequently found in the UK without Kyran. She has not commented on anything to date – and the questions behind Kyran’s baffling vanishing continue to add up.
08/10/25 – Dayla Durnin’s mother, Rhonda Byrne Tyson, prepares to get her daughter Dayla Durnin into her house unseen in Drogheda this afternoon(Image: Colin Keegan, Collins, Dublin.)
During the time before the case was upgraded to murder, Ms Tyson told local newspaper Drogheda Life that her daughter Dayla, and Kyran and her two other children had been staying at her home in Drogheda for some time and she last saw her daughter on August 28, when she went to bed at about 11.00 pm.
She told the paper that when she got up she welt the next morning, both Dayla, and Kyran, who had been sleeping on the couch, had gone from the house. Dayla had left a note on the table saying that she needed to get away for a few days, she said.
“I’m worried sick” Rhonda said at the time. “I know that she got a supply of medication recently but I’m really terrified about what will happen when that runs out.”
“I just want to tell Dayla to please get in touch and tell us that she and Kyran are alright. The children and I are all worried sick and we miss her very much,”’she added. “know you’re a very strong and independent woman but we can all get a bit overwhelmed at times and things can get on top of us.
08/10/25 – Dayla Durnin’s mother, Rhonda Byrne Tyson, opens the door of her car for her daughter Dayla Durnin as she ducks into her house in Drogheda this afternoon(Image: Colin Keegan, Collins, Dublin)
“Please, please pick up the phone and tell us you and Kyran are okay. Your girls are missing you dreadfully, they don’t understand what’s going on and why you are not at home with them.”
Since then a massive garda investigation got underway, and meticulous searches took place at multiple properties – all of which yielded no further answers. Gardai upgraded the investigation to one of murder, on the assumption that the young child was killed and his death was covered up.
Approached by this paper in Ipswich in December, Dayla was seen going to a football match in the company of an older man. She refused to comment to this paper despite the massive investigation.
In February of this year gardai conducted a meticulous search of a two storey semi-detached house in Drogheda and its back garden – drafting in diggers and numerous resources. However nothing of evidential value was found.
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Officers previously searched a property in November of last year and in December. The December search saw gardai access the home of suspect Anthony Maguire (36), who was arrested and took his own life days later.
Maguire was arrested over the suspicion of his role in facilitating having a ‘decoy’ child be brought before Tusla – in an attempt to try and fool them into believing he was Kyran. It was this attempt that first raised the suspicion of the authorities – and which sparked the garda investigation.
Kyran Durnin(Image: Irish Mirror)
Another person was also quizzed about the disappearance and was released without charge.
The Garda investigation team can be contacted at Drogheda Garda Station on 041 987 4200, the Garda Confidential Line on (1800) 666 111 or any Garda Station.
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