Journalist ‘ killed by New IRA’ was about to propose
THE journalist shot dead in Northern Ireland planned to propose to ‘the love her life’ during a dream trip to New York in two weeks.
Lyra McKee, 29, had spoken excitedly to friends about her plans and even invited them to a wedding planned for 2021 before she was gunned down last week.
The heart-breaking revelation came as her girlfriend Sara Canning, 35, issued an emotional appeal for information to help police track down those responsible for the killing.
She was standing alongside Miss McKee at a police patrol in Londonderry when the journalist was struck by a stray bullet believed to have been fired by a gunman from the New IRA republican terrorist group.
Miss Canning said: ‘ Nobody deserves to be gunned down, nobody should have to go home without the one they love. No family should lose their child.’
Describing Miss McKee as her ‘soulmate’, she urged witnesses to share any footage of the incident with the police.
‘She was the love of my life, the most impressive yet humble person alive, and the only person I wanted to grow old with. My heart is broken. No cause is worth the loss of Lyra,’ she said.
Days before her death Miss McKee had told a friend, Ann Travers, about her plans.
She said: ‘Lyra was going to New York with Sara in two weeks’ time and she was so excited because she was going to propose to her.’
Miss Travers, 49, said Miss McKee had bought a ring and was already planning the wedding.
‘Lyra asked if I would come and I said “of course”, then she told me it would be in 2021. I had to stop myself from laughing because that was just so Lyra. She was so enthusiastic about everything, even with the fact that the wedding was in two years.
‘Knowing Lyra, she would have planned the proposal meticulously and had somewhere beautiful to do it. It was a very big thing for her and this is so heart-breaking.
‘Since she met Sara everything had come together, her writing and her book deal [about the Troubles] and everything was going just really, really great.’
Northern Ireland is the only country in the UK where same-sex marriage is illegal, but Miss McKee had planned to marry Miss Canning in Donegal, in the Republic.
Political leaders have condemned the attack and insisted that Northern Ireland will not be dragged back to the past. Miss McKee was killed while standing with onlookers on the republican Creggan housing estate as a mob threw fireworks and petrol bombs on Thursday night.
Police had earlier raided homes searching for weapons in an attempt to disrupt a possible paramilitary plot to murder police over the Easter weekend.
Two teenagers, aged 18 and 19, arrested under terror laws were released by police last night.