Calls for calm as New IRA blamed for killing
Journalist Lyra Mckee’s partner mourns ‘love of my life’ as politicians unite to condemn shooting
POLITICIANS from across the divide called for calm in Northern Ireland last night after a journalist was shot dead in a suspected terror attack.
Lyra Mckee was killed as rioting broke out on Londonderry’s notorious Creggan estate after police carried out searches aimed at disrupting dissident republicans allegedly plotting to carry out Easter bomb and gun attacks.
The death of the 29-year-old journalist on what was described as a “dark day” for the province has been met with “global condemnation, horror and revulsion”, police and politicians said.
Sara Canning, Ms Mckee’s partner, said: “It has left me without the love of my life, the woman I was planning to grow old with. Our hopes and dreams and all of her amazing potential was snuffed out by this single barbaric act.
“This cannot stand. Lyra’s death must not be in vain because her life was a shining light in everyone else’s life, and her legacy will live on in the light that she has left behind.”
Theresa May offered condolences to Ms Mckee’s friends and family after the “shocking “and “senseless” death, adding: “She was a journalist who died doing her job with great courage.”
Police are treating the killing as a terrorist incident and say they believe that the New IRA may be behind it, calling on people who might know the perpetrator to “do the right thing” and come forward. It comes amid fears of rising sectarian violence in the area and calls for calm during the weekend’s commemorations of the 1916 Easter Rising. In a rare move, Arlene Foster of the DUP, Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’neill, Robin Swann of the UUP, Colum Eastwood of the SDLP, the Alliance’s Naomi Long and Clare Bailey of the Green Party issued a joint statement that described the killing as an attack on the peace process.
“We are united in rejecting those responsible for this heinous crime,” they said. “This is a time for calm heads.”
Trouble flared at Creggan, a housing estate on the outskirts of Londonderry, on Thursday night as police carried out a raid looking for firearms and explosives which they believed were to be used to attack police over the weekend. More than 50 petrol bombs were thrown and two cars were hijacked and set alight to create burning barricades.
Ms Mckee was standing among a crowd, including other women and children, when a gunman started shooting indiscriminately around a corner, witnesses said. Leona O’neill, a fellow journalist, said she took cover after hearing the “pop, pop” of gunfire and saw Ms Mckee lying on the ground.
Ms Mckee’s friends tried to pull her to safety before the police “put her in the back of the Land Rover and drove her at speed ... through the burning barricade to the hospital”. “I am standing in Creggan, where the road is strewn with glass and there is a young woman lying dead after being shot,” added Ms O’neill. “There were people crying ... there was a real, real anger about how this could happen.” Police believe that they were the gunman’s intended target. Asst Chief Constable Mark Hamilton said. “We believe this to be a terrorist act. We believe it has been carried out by violent dissident republicans. Our assessment at this time is that the New IRA are most likely to be the ones behind this.” Police later released CCTV footage showing the man suspected of firing the shots.
Det Supt Jason Murphy said: “The footage shows the gunman at the corner and an individual picking up something from the ground ... The answers to what happened last night lie within the community. I am asking people to do the right thing for Lyra Mckee, for her family and for Derry/londonderry and help us stop this madness.”
There was a backlash after a statement on the website of Saoradh – a political party with dissident links – said Ms Mckee was killed accidentally during “resistance” against British forces.
‘It has left me without the love of my life ... Our hopes and dreams and all of her amazing potential was snuffed out by this single barbaric act’
LYRA MCKEE, who has died aged 29, was an investigative journalist who was fearless in her pursuit of the truth. She published books and articles on the Troubles, and described her native Northern Ireland as a “beautiful tragedy”.
She had come to prominence in 2014 when she wrote a blog post, “Letter to my 14-year-old self ”, in response to homophobic comments made by a Northern Irish pastor.
In it she recounted the travails of growing up as a lesbian in Belfast. She wrote of coming out to her mother shortly before she turned 21: “You have to tell her because you’ve met someone you like and you can’t live with the guilt anymore. You can’t get the words out so she says it: ‘Are you gay?’ And you will say, ‘Yes Mummy, I’m so sorry.’ And instead of getting mad, she will reply, ‘Thank God you’re not pregnant’.”
Lyra Mckee was born in Belfast on March 31 1990, and brought up in the
city on Cliftonville Road, near the infamous “Murder Mile”. Her journalistic leanings made an early appearance when she started a school newspaper.
She went on to become an editor at Mediagazer, a Us-based site that collates news reports, and to write for publications and websites that included The Atlantic, Buzzfeed, Private Eye and the Belfast Telegraph.
“Letter to my 14-year-old self ” was adapted into a short film, and in 2016 Lyra Mckee was named as one of the “30 Under the Age of 30” in Forbes magazine, which noted her willingness to “dig into topics that others don’t care about”. In 2017 she gave a TED talk at Stormont about the shootings at a gay nightclub in Florida the previous year in which 49 people died.
Her non-fiction book, Angels With Blue Faces, tells the story of the murder of the Belfast MP, Rev Robert Bradford, during the Troubles. She had recently signed a two-book deal with Faber & Faber, with the first, The Lost Boys, due for publication in 2020. The book recounts the disappearance of eight Belfast schoolboys between 1969 and 1975.
Her agent, speaking about the book, wrote: “Her focus as a journalist is the indirect ways the violence of war plays out, through its secondary waves of victims, and through the way trauma is passed on to subsequent generations.”
Lyra Mckee was due to speak at an Amnesty International event next month about the murder of Marie Colvin, to mark World Press Freedom Day. Her last piece was in the Belfast Telegraph, in which she wrote about the increase in suicide rates of young people since the Good Friday agreement.
She was reporting on rioting in the Creggan area of Derry when a gunman, believed to be a member of the dissident Republican group, the New IRA, opened fire on police with a handgun. She was hit by a bullet and died later in hospital.
A crowdfunding appeal to pay for Lyra Mckee’s funeral raised more than £5,000 in its first hour. She is survived by her family and her partner, Sara Canning.