Lyra McKee

I was angered and saddened by the death of journalist Lyra McKee last week in Northern Ireland. She was shot by the “New IRA” during riots in Derry when the police were seizing weapons from dissidents before parades to commemorate the Easter Rising. A gunman started shooting at the police and Lyra was killed. Her funeral was today. It reminded me all too much of all the awful killings in Northern Ireland when I was growing up in the 1970s and 1980s and until the peace process started in the 1990s. Although sadly it still rumbles on. The New IRA have apologised, saying that it was an accident because she was standing near “enemy forces” meaning the police, but I feel that if a police officer had been shot it would have been just as terrible.
Lyra was five weeks younger than Jamie and had just turned 29. And like Jamie and many other 29 year olds she was in the first wave of Harry Potter fans. Like Jamie she must have waited excitedly for each book to be published. Her family asked her friends to wear Harry Potter memorabilia to her funeral. At the funeral, as well as criticising the politicians for not working together properly, the priest said that he hoped that Lyra’s death would be a “doorway to a new beginning” for Northern Ireland. I hope so.