The family of Tina Satchwell have expressed relief and a sense of loss after learning that remains found in a house in Youghal, Co Cork, were those of the Fermoy native who has been missing for more than six years.
Ms Satchwell’s sister, Teresa Dingivan, who lives in the UK, on Friday wrote on social media: “RIP to my beautiful sister – Tina you can rest now, luv, we found you – I luv and miss you – you are now with Mum, fly high my beautiful angel.”
Originally from St Bernard’s Place in Fermoy, Tina Dingivan was the youngest of five girls and had three brothers. Teresa spoke of their childhood in an interview earlier this year with the Irish Examiner.
“She was lovely, well-looked-after, polite. We were a close family. She was loved, happy, freegoing, a lovely young girl,” she said. “We lived on a quiet street, and we’d all play on the street with our friends. She was always with us. She’d sit on the step with and play. My parents adored her.”
Tina moved to England in the late 1980s when she was just 16 to live with Teresa, who had emigrated some time earlier to join their grandmother in Leicester. It was there that she met lorry driver Richard Satchwell, whose brother lived just a few doors down, on March 3rd, 1989.
Teresa remembered that period with fondness. “We used to go for dinner, go shopping, I never knew a girl who loved clothes and jewellery as much as Tina… I have good memories of her.”
Tina and Mr Satchwell began dating soon after they met. In June 1989, Mr Satchwell came over to Ireland with Tina and they stayed together for a period before he proposed to her at Mount Pleasant, overlooking Youghal Bay, where they would eventually settle.
The couple returned to the UK where, on Tina’s 20th birthday on November 30th, 1991, they married in Oldham. None of Mr Satchwell’s family attended, which he explained was a result of his family not approving of the marriage.
“Basically, my family are anti-Irish. When I was brought up in school, all we heard about Ireland was the IRA. I was given an ultimatum when I met Tina, I chose Tina, I never spoke to my mother again before she died,” he said in an interview in 2018.
The couple moved back to Fermoy, but the marriage was not without its strains. In 2002, Mr Satchwell, who was self-employed, ran into financial difficulties and returned to the UK for 12 months to try and sort out his financial situation while sending money back to Tina.
About a year later, Mr Satchwell was convicted of social welfare fraud and spent a month in Cork Prison. The couple got back together after his release.
Tina was a familiar sight around Fermoy while Mr Satchwell worked a variety of jobs.
They sold their house on Liam MacGearailt Place in 2016 and moved to Youghal, buying a house on Grattan Street. Mr Satchwell converted a number of attic rooms into wardrobe rooms for Tina, who had maintained her love of clothes.
The couple did not have any children, with Tina lavishing her attention on her parrot, Pearl, and dogs, Ruby and Heidi, which she was frequently seen walking in Youghal. She was reportedly devastated when Pearl died, but she soon bought another parrot, Valentine.
Tina was keen on visiting charity shops and the couple were also regulars at car boot sales where, according to Mr Satchwell, his wife proved herself “a bargain hunter”.
According to one Garda source, Tina may have been a compulsive hoarder. When detectives searched her home, they discovered three full rooms of neatly packed clothes, most with their labels and tags still attached, folded and arranged on shelves.
Speaking to the Irish Examiner on March 20th, 2021, the fourth anniversary of Tina’s disappearance, Teresa Dingivan painted a picture of her sister as someone who was happy and content – which made her sudden disappearance in 2017 all the more surprising.
“Tina was funny and bubbly and independent. She was kind and considerate. She was a really good sister, and she adored her family.”
