dagblog - Comments for " Derry riots: journalist killed in 'terrorist incident', say Northern Ireland police"

There troubles are not over.

rmrd0000 — Fri, 19 Apr 2019 13:23:57 +0000

In reply to Derry riots: journalist killed in 'terrorist incident', say Northern Ireland police

There troubles are not over. A recent book details how the murder of a young mother in Ireland during the troubles went unsolved because witnesses remained silent.

Nearly 4,000 people were killed in the Troubles in Northern Ireland between the late 1960s and the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, as violent tensions flared between mostly Catholic republicans, who sought unification of Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland, and a mix of Protestant paramilitaries, police, and British army forces arrayed against them. People died in shootings and riots and bombings. They were killed in internecine struggles, or while guarding military posts, or while simply going about their daily lives in Belfast.

But a small number, fewer than 20, were “disappeared,” a technique more associated with right-wing South American juntas than with Northern Irish guerrillas. One night in December 1972, masked militants entered a flat in Belfast and abducted Jean McConville, a recently widowed mother of 10. The kidnappers told the children she’d be back soon, but McConville was never seen again. Her body was not found until 2003, and her murder has never been officially solved.

Patrick Radden Keefe’s new book, Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland, presents itself as a detective story: a quest to figure out who killed McConville and why. Keefe is accomplished at unraveling old crimes—as he did with “A Loaded Gun,” his breathtaking 2013 New Yorker article about a mass shooter—and he had an unusual cache of evidence to work with. After the Good Friday Agreement, Boston College created an archive of oral histories of the conflict, which was intended to be sealed until the interviewees were dead. Two of the interviews, with the former Irish Republican Army members Brendan Hughes and Dolours Price, discussed the murder in detail. Keefe was able to work from transcripts of interviews with both Hughes and Price, who had died by the time he wrote the book.

People know the killers. The disappearances are simply not talked about to keep the “peace” and not restart the troubles.

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/03/patrick-radden...

McKee wrote this 2016 piece

artappraiser — Fri, 19 Apr 2019 07:55:55 +0000

In reply to Derry riots: journalist killed in 'terrorist incident', say Northern Ireland police

McKee wrote this 2016 piece for The Atlantic which is currently #8 on their "most popular" story list. In some ways I find a kind of spooky equivalence to Appalachia in the U.S. or in rural areas of the world where there an "alienation" problem:

One of the many brilliant pieces by @LyraMcKee, the 29-year-old journalist killed in Derry last night, on suicide and inter generational trauma among 'Ceasefire Babies' in Northern Ireland. https://t.co/c6kUNwrtdf
— Poppy McPherson (@poppymcp) April 19, 2019

Her last tweet:

artappraiser — Fri, 19 Apr 2019 07:47:16 +0000

In reply to Derry riots: journalist killed in 'terrorist incident', say Northern Ireland police

Her last tweet:

A journalist has been killed covering riots in Derry. Her name was Lyra McKee. She was 29. She recently signed a two-book deal with Faber, who called her a "rising star of investigative journalism". This is her last tweet, sent from the scene of the unrest. pic.twitter.com/0gk1Fa7Du0
— Naomi O'Leary (@NaomiOhReally) April 19, 2019