Opinion

What an appalling loss to add to already appalling register of violent deaths

I was born on what I am told was a glorious summer’s day in July 1956, 35 years after partition, sixth child to a mother who was herself born in the pre-partition Ireland of 1918. 

The place of my birth is only significant because it is a mere 100 yards or so from the spot on Fanad Drive, Derry, where Lyra McKee was senselessly slain on Holy Thursday, first of the three most holy days in the Christian calendar. The house and street where I was born are no longer there now, the hastily thrown-up pre-fabs of Creggan in the 1950s having long since given way to open spaces and


‘proper’ housing.

Looking back on life growing up in Derry through the 1960s and 1970s, I have a veritable storehouse of memories, a kaleidoscope of the good and the bad, many of which now appear almost surreal.  

What was a carefree, innocent, relatively normal childhood in the 1960s gradually gave way to a 1970s adolescence frequently scarred and disfigured by the horrors visited on us all with the onset of the Troubles. Life as a teenager back then was anything but normal – but, then again, nothing was ‘normal’.  With the incessant riots, bombings, shootings, and the unending procession of funerals, time at once appeared to stand still, and at once to race away with the speed of a shooting star.  

Everyone seemed to be living life in a fog, or a dream, or a trance.  Things ‘felt’ normal because we did everyday things like shop, eat, sleep and go to school or work. But nothing was normal because the spectre of death and destruction constantly hung over our city like a huge blanket that blocked out all light and hope. 

Of course, Derry had no monopoly on this nightmare experience. The whole of our land was convulsed by the madness, and respite, were any to be found, was usually transitory and insubstantial.

In her own words, Lyra McKee was one of the “Ceasefire Babies”, a beneficiary of the Good Friday Agreement, born after the worst of our troubled past. 

She optimistically wrote that her generation was “destined not to witness the horrors of war but to reap the spoils of peace”, (mosaicscience.com, 2016). Unfortunately, it was my generation’s destiny to witness those horrors, but for most of us thankfully to survive them that we might yet reap the spoils.  

It was not to be for Lyra McKee. The fact of Lyra’s young life being so brutally and pointlessly taken from her on a street in Derry, a street that I walked for years as a child, is the cruellest of bitter ironies.  What an appalling loss to add to the already appalling register of violent deaths in our times, and all to what end?  

To those apologists with this young woman’s blood on their hands, I join with the chorus and I too say: not in Derry’s name, and most certainly not in mine. RIP Lyra McKee.

E O CASSIDY


Omagh, Co Tyrone

Many similarities between Ireland’s troubled history and brutal British Empire

Punjabi communities in India and throughout the world have been commemorating the unjustified massacre of between 500 and 900 innocent men, women and children on the 13th of April 1919 by the colonial power better known as the British Empire. The people of Amritsar and its surrounding villages had gathered in defiance of the British who had imposed martial law. This gathering coincided with a religious and cultural festival called ‘Baisakhi’ and a large number of pilgrims were present. The empire’s lieutenant governor of the Punjab region was Sir Michael Francis O’Dwyer who hailed from Barronstown, Co Tipperary. 

When O’Dwyer was informed that his orders of not to congregate were being ignored, he ordered troops under the command of brigadier general Reginald Dyer to Amritsar. Dyer, who also had Irish connections, was educated at Middleton College, Co Cork 1875-1881 before completing his education at Sandhurst. 

The innocent victims had gathered in a walled garden of around six acres, known as the ‘Jallianwala Bagh’. Dyer and his regiment arrived unexpectedly, blocked all the small entry points with their vehicles, then assembled at the large main gate. Dyer gave orders to fire at chest height and to continue until all their ammunition was spent. A total of 1,650 rounds were fired, there was a mass panic and many children were trampled on, the final death count was somewhere between 500 to 900 victims. Dyer continued to surround the garden and prevented the injured from getting help. Afterwards Dyer boosted that barely a bullet was wasted. 

News of Dyer’s barbarism was suppressed by the British for six months. The Hunter Commission found him guilty of grave error and he was relieved of his command and censured by the House of Commons, but promptly exonerated by the House of Lords, some describing him as the man who saved India. Returning to London in 1920 he suffered bad health and after several strokes died in 1927. Better known as ‘the butcher of Amritsar’, Dyer, in 1886 had seen action in Belfast where he was sent by the army to batter rioting nationalists. 

Dyer’s superior, the hated Sir Michael Francis O’Dwyer was also relieved of his position and retired to London in 1920, where he enjoyed all the trimmings of the empire’s ill-gotten gains. 

Udham Singh, a young man who had survived the massacre held O’Dwyer responsible for this heinous act. He swore that one day he would avenge the slaughter of Amritsar. 

On March 13 1940, Singh caught up with O’Dwyer at a colonial event held in Caxton Hall, Westminster and killed him. Udham Singh, the hero of the Punjab, was hanged at Pentonville Prison on July 31 1940.

So many similarities to Ireland’s troubled history with the brutal British Empire. 

FRANK GLYNN


Cricklewood, London

Shame on anyone who would use funeral for political ends

With deepest sympathy and respect to the family and partner of Lyra McKee I have thought long and hard about what I am about to write. 

If the fatality on that awful night had been an ordinary local person would the Dublin and London politicians have been at the funeral? Would the North of Ireland Big Two (DUP/Sinn Féin) have had the neck to sit together in God’s house? Lyra was a journalist and so a large majority of the congregation were workmates and union members, and rightly so. Would Fr Magill have made such a heartfelt address? I hope he would have. But the more I think of it I’m coming to the conclusion that a lot of politicians were on a popularity jaunt on the day wee Lyra was buried.  

R McNALLY


Co Armagh  

Electorate voted like ‘natives’

The talented Irish footballer, the wise Danny Blanchflower, during a BBC interview in the 1960s referred to his fellow citizens as ‘natives’. It caused outrage. It was a more innocent time and whilst he read books, others formed their world view from the telly and what was on at the cinemas and they understood “natives” to be primitive, unquestioning tribal people who on ritual occasions demonstrated their loyalty to the tribe and to the chief regardless of all considerations except the need to ensure tribal dominance. Blanchflower’s misunderstood description of his fellow citizens comes to mind when one thinks of the many who left their homes yesterday with the conviction that they were about to act as independent, sovereign, individuals who rationally and objectively cast their vote for the candidate of their choice. Except, invariably, they’re mistaken. All the voting evidence indicates that, in the main, perceived Protestants vote unionist and perceived Catholics vote nationalist. That undoubtedly suggests an absence of serious reflection on the complexity of the issues and one expects, as ever, most of the electorate voted as ‘natives’.

WES HOLMES


Belfast BT14