Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Mcconville son loses his cancer battle TRAGEDY OF CHARLIE GARD
MORE PAIN FOR MCCONVILLE FAMILY Brother’s promise to cancer victim
HE was just six years old when his mother Jean Mcconville was abducted, murdered and secretly buried by the IRA.
Now Billy Mcconville has died aged 50, his body ravaged by cancer after a life of pain, despair and more challenges than anyone should have to face.
From the moment their mum was disappeared by an IRA gang in December 1972 life for the 10 now orphaned Mcconville children spiralled into chaos.
Billy, his twin James and their eight siblings were placed in care.
They were left to imagine their mother’s whereabouts, walking the streets to find her, begging for information and help but discovering only lies, half-truths, rumour and injustice.
During a time when young Billy needed warmth, kindness and compassion, he was handed in to the care of the brothers from the De La Salle religious order at Rubane House, Co Down.
There the youngster was subjected to physical and sexual abuse by staff members and older boys.
Nearly 40 years later Billy, a dad of four, appeared before the 2014 Historical Institutional Abuse inquiry to present in detail his experiences in church and State care, saying it was time to “tell his story”.
And in recent weeks he had called on politicians to secure justice and compensation for abuse survivors, leaving his hospital bed to support a Belfast rally.
The inquiry has recommended compensation worth up to £100,000 for the worst affected but he passed away with no end in sight to the pain.
And at 5.20am on Sunday, with his brother Thomas by his side, Billy took his final breath.
Diagnosed with bladder cancer last year he had fought for his life.
But six months after a major operation his body could take no more.
Thomas said: “Billy knew the time was coming.
“He had accepted it was the end and there was no fight left in his body.
“Before he died he spoke to all of us and he told us to keep fighting for justice for the abuses that were suffered.
“It’s very sad Billy didn’t live long enough to see justice for what he went through but we will stand strong together and we’ll fight on right to the end. The one thing he was able to do was make sure we were all talking, that we were back together as a family and we got over any upset we’d had with each other.
“I’m very glad about that. It took Billy getting sick to make us realise we needed to be a united family for him, for us all.
“What we went through as children and young boys and teenagers was disgraceful. What our mother went through was disgraceful. We grew up with almost every chance of happiness knocked out of us and some of us did better to cope than others.
“But Billy was a fighter. He fought for justice and was still fighting when he got sick.
“Then he fought for his life when cancer hit him.
“He was part way to getting some justice when he was taken.” Billy was being cared for in the Northern Ireland Hospice when he passed away. His siblings and children had been a constant supply of love and care during his illness.
And in the moment he took his last breath his painfully thin hand was in the firm grasp of his brother’s.
Thomas added: “He was never on his own.
“I was lying by his side and he was asleep and I was sort of waking and dosing.
“I held his hand in mine. We spent hours like that and he was in no distress. I was just opening my eyes to look at him when a nurse told me quietly he had just gone, he’d taken his last breath. I said I knew. I felt it.
“Now we are left to bury one of the youngest of the children in our family. Every wish he had wanted will be carried out.”
Billy’s funeral service will be held tomorrow at St Paul’s Church, Falls Road, West Belfast. He will be buried with his sister in Milltown Cemetery.