Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
We need answers, we need truth.. you don’t just brush it under the carpet & move on
Victims’ families in amnesty Bill plea
RELATIVES of children killed during the Troubles have told their stories to MPS before a vote on a controversial Bill granting amnesty for crimes committed during the conflict.
Martin Mcgavigan and Mary Feeneymorrison, now in their 60s, were among a group of six families taking part in a special event in Parliament last night.
His sister Annette was shot dead by British soldiers during a riot in the Bogside area of Derry in 1971.
She was just 14 years old and still wearing her school uniform.
He said he remembered his mother “talking to Annette’s clothes that she was murdered in, the blood-stained slippers, the school uniform”.
Mr Mcgavigan also recalled how his daughter Maria would find him crying as he read her papers.
Ms Feeney-morrison’s sister Kathleen was also 14 when she was killed by an IRA sniper in Derry in 1973.
In 2005, the terror group made an official apology to her family but nobody has been convicted for the murder.
She said: “When my sister was shot dead, when we buried her nobody came to us and said, ‘Are you OK?’ That’s widespread around the north of Ireland. There was no assistance, there was no help for anybody – you just had to get on with it.
“You just blended it into your daily life while you were fighting mentally.”
Although both are still affected by the loss of their siblings, they said they had been helped by a production staged by the Derry Playhouse in which their children helped tell their stories.
Ms Feeney-morrison said seeing her daughter Sarah perform her story had helped her “heal”, while Mr Mcgavigan added seeing Maria on stage had made him both “proud” and able to talk more openly about his experiences.
It is a stripped-down version of that production that has been brought to Westminster at the invitation of SDLP leader and Foyle MP Colum Eastwood.
He hopes the families’ testimonies will persuade MPS to oppose the Government’s controversial Troubles Legacy Bill. The proposed legisla- tion is due for its next debate in
the
I’ve not met a victim who supports this Bill
House of Commons on Wednesday and has been criticised by Amnesty International for giving “murderers and those responsible for torture a free pass”.
Mr Eastwood said: “Particularly on the Tory benches there has been a fairly cavalier attitude to the impact that this Bill will have on ordinary people’s lives.
“I’ve not met a victim yet who supports it. It’s important they have the opportunity to see for themselves the impact that the past has had on people.”
Mr Mcgavigan, who was 11 when his sister was killed, added: “Hopefully this doesn’t go through because we need answers. We need truth, we need justice for our loved ones. You just don’t brush it under the carpet and say move on.”
So far, only one Conservative MP – Northern Ireland Affairs Committee chair Simon Hoare – has agreed to see the production.
Mr Eastwood added: “The test is a fairly simple one. Are all of those MPS who are prepared to pontificate about Northern Ireland and the past prepared to walk up two flights of stairs and listen to them?
“We tried to make it as easy as possible for them and it will say a lot about them if they don’t turn up.”