Opinion

When will the ‘brighter future' we were promised arrive?

Joanne McGibbon, centre, with Father Gary Donegan at the vigil which was held at Holy Cross Church in support of her murdered husband Michael. Picture by Philip Walsh 
Joanne McGibbon, centre, with Father Gary Donegan at the vigil which was held at Holy Cross Church in support of her murdered husband Michael. Picture by Philip Walsh  Joanne McGibbon, centre, with Father Gary Donegan at the vigil which was held at Holy Cross Church in support of her murdered husband Michael. Picture by Philip Walsh 

EARLIER this month a father-of-four was lured from his north Belfast home to an alley and shot three times in the leg. His wife, a nurse, fought to save him but he later died in hospital.

The paramilitary group known as the 'IRA' said "the intention of this operation was to carry out a punishment shooting". "Tragically," the group said "this resulted in his death". Or to put it plainly, they murdered him.

Everything about Michael McGibbon’s killing is depressingly familiar - the manner in which the taxi driver was ordered from his home, just opposite Holy Cross Church in Ardoyne, the botched shooting, the cold claim of responsibility.

But what stands out is the reaction of his widow Joanne. In the midst of her grief she wrote a card to Rev Colin Duncan at Woodvale Methodist Manse, thanking people on "the other side" for the support they had shown her family.

"It would be nice if our children could have a brighter future," she wrote.

Joanne McGibbon is still a young woman. She was only in her teens when the landmark Good Friday Agreement was signed in 1998.

She was one of the tens of thousands of children who were promised a brighter future. And yet 18 years on from the landmark accord her husband was murdered.

She will now have to raise four children - daughters Seanna, Michaela and Corry-Leigh, and son Shea - without their father.

How much has really changed since 1998? Those of us who are in our thirties do not remember the worst days of the Troubles.

Civil rights marches and Bloody Friday and the Hunger Strikes had already become part of history when we were children. What we witnessed was the achingly slow fumbling towards peace - ceasefires and sporadic killings, small concessions, tiny, grudging admissions. We saw not so much the desire for a relative peace but the exhaustion that lengthy conflict brings.

Why then is a small section of people, including many who do not remember the conflict, so keen to see it return? There’s no doubt that dissident groups, including the one known as the ‘IRA’, have drawn in a handful of disaffected veteran republicans.

Last month assistant chief constable Will Kerr said a small number of dissidents with "very significant terrorist experience" are leading the groups.

Yet they have also attracted many younger people. The only person who has so far been arrested - and released - in connection with Mr McGibbon’s murder, high-profile republican Dee Fennell, is just 34.

And the PSNI believes dissident groups are growing. Dissidents are actively recruiting, targeting young people alienated from politics - the same young people who were supposed to benefit from the rewards of a peaceful society. If there is peace, we were told almost two decades ago, jobs and stability will come.

Mr McGibbon was only 33 - still young, still with a huge amount to offer. He was murdered based on completely unfounded allegations, on rumour and hearsay, by an illegal group who decided they had the right to judge and execute. His death was tragic, they said, but accepted no blame.

At a vigil in north Belfast a few days after Mr McGibbon’s death, Fr Gary Donegan, rector of Holy Cross, said Joanne McGibbon had shown "more courage, conviction, compassion and mercy” than the people who killed him will “ever know”.

The dignity Mrs McGibbon showed at the vigil was remarkable. She was brave enough to speak out against the people who had killed her husband.

“If we all stay strong, we can stop these people because we are stronger than them and they can’t beat us,” she said. “It’s not fair that families have to go through this. They are not judge and jury."

Joanne McGibbon shouldn’t have had to speak out. Like her husband, she should have been one of the children who experienced a better future.

Down the road from the McGibbon family home loyalists still hold nightly protests against a Parades Commission determination not to allow an Orange lodge to walk past the Ardoyne shop fronts.

In almost three years, the protests have stopped only once - on the night of Mr McGibbon’s vigil as a mark of solidarity with his family. Yet the next day they continued on.

The Good Friday Agreement promised much, but how many of those promises have come to pass? How long must we wait, how long must the McGibbon family wait, before a brighter future arrives?