Sarah Kay observes the need to reanimate a desire for peace
In the one week since we have lost the incredible soul that was Lyra McKee, I was given the opportunity to express my incredible sadness and budding anger to different outlets, starting with RTE on the day and, this week, before the funeral, to BBC Radio 4, for their obituary programme The Last Word.
It still feels surreal to discuss an obituary when it comes to someone so young and so full of life, but I am grateful nonetheless to share some of my fondest memories of one of the most incredible humans I’ve met, the presenter offered me the most impossible riddle to ever, well, present to someone from Ulster.
I’m giving you this the way I’ve given it to Belfast-born writer Robert McLiam Wilson: “with the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach present, do you think this will be a moment of change for the situation in Northern Ireland?” The issue is that Lyra herself would have had the best response to that question.
Because my generation is screwed; we have been robbed of hope a long time ago. We’ve had Clinton, then Haass, and we allowed ourselves to believe in the luxury that a modicum of stability could be achieved; now we’re cynical, soulless. Northern Ireland holds many records, but one that has yet to be matched is the longest democracy not to have a sitting government in peacetime. Peace talks collapse; power-sharing talks are halted. The situation Sinn Fein and the DUP place the region is one of hostage to sentiments that have not fully translated to a generation that has not come of age around the RUC.
The Ceasefire Babies, as Lyra called them, enjoyed their European membership, their freedom of movement, EU Charter-given rights and few would dare question the importance of the Good Friday Agreement. As of the date of writing, the 1998 Belfast Agreement can buy alcohol, but not yet rent a car. It can vote, enroll in the military, and pass its driving licence. This is by no means a test of legal endurance. By the scale of international treaties, the Good Friday Agreement is in its infancy.
An old folk song popular in France, for some reason, claims that “an orange tree” - the symbol of peace – “would never grow on Irish soil”. Everyone but authorities in charge had been well aware of the terrifying fragility of our peace-building organisations, of the funding for the survival of integrated communities. Few wrote about this like Lyra did.
Lyra loved her generation. She spoke of her elders with reverence, never invalidating their experiences for the simple reason it did not happen to her specifically. She discussed trauma with a sensitivity I have yet to see in those sitting in Stormont. She wrote about inherited violence with the complexity of a much more mature mind, and she had at some point desired to complete a degree in international peace in order to have a deeper understanding of the mechanisms and power at play in Northern Ireland. She didn't need to: she had access to those who had no one left to talk to, who had been discarded, left by the wayside, alone with their thoughts, fears and nightmares somewhere north of Divis Street and east of Malborough Street.
Lyra was a child of Belfast and knew its infrastructure did not always include a two-story high Urban Outfitters in the city centre. The mental health toll of the conflict continued well after the Belfast Agreement and still claims lives. What too many had forgotten is that the same old violence we knew, reckless and immature paramilitary violence, could claim lives in 2019.
Do I believe this is a watershed moment? I want to. I don’t want this life - or any life, but this one was close to my heart - lost in vain. But we are facing a British government swallowed up in the Brexit-shaped black hole it manufactured and our peace process has fallen into the void.
Before Lyra's murder, Derry had been engulfed in escalating riots for months. Always a hotbed of the conflict, bearing the scarlet letter of the Troubles for hosting the Bloody Sunday, Derry had less to account for than Belfast. Sectarianism was just as evident from a bird's eye view, its history painted on tall walls around a museum dedicated to the Irish civil rights movement. For many, “parade season” is just a time of the year to see if the grass is greener on the European continent, go see relatives in the Republic, or simply hold tight inside their homes.
Outside of Ulster, the attention is very few and far-between. Theresa May's alliance with the DUP last year, in a pathetic bid to keep her hold onto premiership, introduced the party to the rest of the United Kingdom. Until then, a very large portion of the British political commentariat had simply obliterated the situation in Northern Ireland, including one cause that was very close to Lyra's heart: access to same-sex marriage. To borrow the words from the brilliant Grainne Teggart of Amnesty International, the North is “a place apart”.
Lyra could not marry her girlfriend, Sara Cummings, despite being recognized in Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland. Women still do not have access to abortion, despite the recent legalisation in the Republic and the long standing legislation in Great Britain. Lyra would have kept European membership to ensure that her rights would be preserved; Northern Ireland had long learnt the lesson that nothing could be done if it wasn't done by itself. Let it be known that the DUP is the only party that refused to vote in favour of the Good Friday Agreement, yet its leader, First Minister Arlene Foster, has attended Lyra's funeral.
Brexit has given us “the GFA is not sacrosanct”, according to the same Arlene Foster, and we have new young people recruited by not so new paramilitaries. I’ve seen more willingness to act toward unity, inclusion, integration, and peace-building today during the funeral than I have in my entire life. Today, the news broke that the funeral had reunited the controlling authorities – Simon Coveney, Ireland's Foreign Minister; Karen Bradley, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland; Therea May, Prime Minister – propelling forward a new round of power-sharing talks, halted, like a suspended breath, since the death of Martin McGuinness.
This speaks to who Lyra was as a person, but also to the power of Northern Irish people to act for themselves. Because we are by ourselves. No one else is paying attention. Lyra McKee aimed to change that, to bring forward stories beyond the confines of our borders.
That her funeral brought those who denied her sexual orientation and her rights as a woman can't be denounced anymore. If her death can reanimate a desire for peace, that had been long abandoned or considered achieved (!), then it must be preserved, cherished, and nourished, just like the lives of the Ceasefire Babies. They deserve it, and so do we.
Sarah Kay is a human rights lawyer
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