While SF and DUP dithered, Lyra died

IT IS a grim irony that the coming of age of the Good Friday Agreement was commemorated with another senseless killing by selfstyled Irish freedom fighters in Derry. As the clock ticked down to the 21st anniversary of the historic peace accord, a 29-year-old journalist and author was shot by a criminal gang calling themselves the New IRA.

Lyra McKee, who celebrated the possibilities of life every day, died in a night of stage-managed violence in a town she loved so well.

Praise for her writing and campaigning for the gay community flooded the airwaves – a welcome antidote to the bile spewed out by her killers. As Lyra’s pleas for tolerance and words of love played on the radio, a statement from the New IRA described her shooting as ‘an accident’.

But whoever killed her had set out with a loaded gun and discharged it in a crowded residential street: there was nothing unintentional about the fanatical shooter’s reckless indifference and lethal intent. Ms Lyra McKee was murdered.

FR Joe Gormley, the parish priest in Creggan who gave the last rites to Lyra, spoke for all the people in Derry responding to their statement: ‘How dare they.’ He went on to describe the New IRA as ‘antichrists’. The gardaí and PSNI say the New IRA are the biggest threat to peace in this country since the Provisionals. And the New IRA have adopted the communications and military know-how of the Provisional IRA. The New IRA’s statement on Friday claimed their gunman was protecting the residents of the Creggan from a police search for weapons. Lyra’s shooting validates the PSNI intelligence about weapons and ammunition hidden in the area.

The New IRA are a ruthless criminal gang that justifies its savagery with delusions of political relevance.

Political progress takes patience, diligence and trust – qualities so evidently absent for so long in Stormont.

The leaders of the DUP and Sinn Féin’s stand-off has licensed a destructive stalemate – each of them representing the basest belligerence in their community.

Mary Lou McDonald is clinging to her call for a border poll she knows would fail.

Arlene Foster is refusing to honour the position on the EU held by a substantial majority of the people in Northern Ireland. While the leaders of the DUP and Sinn Féin huffed and dithered, Lyra McKee died.

Nancy Pelosi could be a role model for the sisters of the perpetual sulk: last week the US Speaker let Britain know they would have no trade deal with the US if Brexit destabilised the Good Friday Agreement.

I bet Ms McKee would have been cheering Nancy.

Lyra called herself a ‘Ceasefire Baby’, born in 1990 when relentless sectarian violence sundered Belfast but she loved and died in Derry.

Growing up in Belfast it was obvious to me that Northern Ireland was a cold house for Catholics – but arctic for gay people.

Yet Lyra McKee slipped through the prejudices in Northern Ireland and vigorously exercised her curiosity asking questions and finding out about people – vital for any successful writer or journalist.

And whether it is despite of, or because of her tragic death before 30, Lyra McKee is now leaving a footprint in history – and a proud legacy.