By Harry Hutchinson, Labour Party Northern Ireland
The senseless killing of 29 year-old journalist and author, Lyra McKee, moved people throughout Northern Ireland to organise vigils, rallies and protests not witnessed since the violent troubles of the past. Lyra was reporting on a police search in the Creggan estate in the city of Derry, when a lone gunman opened fire towards police lines and hit Lyra standing behind police land rovers.
The killing of this award-winning journalist by the New IRA spontaneously brought thousands onto the street over a week-long period up to Lyra’s funeral. The funeral was attended by the British and Irish Premiers, the leader of the British Opposition and all the heads of the Northern Ireland political parties.
The killing exposed the unsolved problems in Norther Irish society. The Creggan estate is one of the most deprived areas in the UK, where paramilitary-controlled drugs and antisocial crime are rife.
Lyra wrote of the failure of the Good Friday Agreement. In one of her articles she graphically illustrated the conditions that young people live under, pointing out that more people have died from suicide since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement than all those killed in the troubles.
Lyra understood why young people were turning to parliamentary organisations, whom she described as the ‘ceasefire babies’, effectively those not born to witness the senseless loss of live in a futile conflict.
This one individual, who was an advocate for human, civil and LGBT rights, depicted everything that was progressive and unifying. Thousands applauded as Lyra’s coffin left St Ann’s Cathedral to her final resting place.
Public attention also focused on the Norther Ireland political leaders. The failure in particular of the DUP and Sinn Fein (SF) to solve any of the underling problems of the region became evident and a stark reminder that the North could lapse into its troubled past. A province left without a government for over two years, while these sectarian Unionist and Nationalist parties squabble over who is to blame for a vacuum that could be filled by paramilitary groups.
The stark contrast between these main Norther Ireland parties and the people became exposed in Lyra’s killing. A distance that has caused concern in the British Government, fearful of initiatives from a united people, like the three-day planned People’s March from Belfast to Derry in May, reminiscent of the Civil Rights marches of the 1960s. Pressure is now on the DUP and SF to get back into Government.
April 28, 2019
