Bearing Witness
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Journalists cover war from different vantage-points. Some, like Colvin, reported while the smell of cordite and burnt flesh still lingered in the air. Others, like Lyra McKee, covered the aftermath, long after the guns had fallen silent. Regardless of their vantage-point, it takes courage to bear witness to the horrors of war; and, as we now know, a few, like Colvin and McKee, have tragically lost their lives as a result.
In Lost, Found, Remembered, we find dispatches from an inquisitive young reporter who grew up amidst the smouldering foxholes of a conflict-ridden society profoundly damaged by decades of violence. Lyra McKee came from an optimistic generation who were told by politicians that they would ‘reap the spoils and prosperity that supposedly came with peace.’
In Lost, Found, Remembered, we find dispatches from an inquisitive young reporter who grew up amidst the smouldering foxholes of a conflict-ridden society profoundly damaged by decades of violence. Lyra McKee came from an optimistic generation who were told by politicians that they would ‘reap the spoils and prosperity that supposedly came with peace.’
Lyra thought differently. She believed her generation of “ceasefire babies” - those born around the time of the 1994 paramilitary ceasefires – had been lied to by politicians. This disappointment lay at the heart of her writing. It seems cruelly ironic in light of the clamour by many of the same politicians to attend her funeral shortly after she was shot and killed that we were all forced to bear witness to their failures.
To be sceptical of the Northern Ireland peace process is a risky business, particularly in a tribal society where you can easily be shunned, exiled, or worse. If you are seen to be standing against the herd, even in a small way, you can provoke a change in their direction. Very quickly a loose, meandering herd can become a focused stampede heading right for you.
To be sceptical of the Northern Ireland peace process is a risky business, particularly in a tribal society where you can easily be shunned, exiled, or worse. If you are seen to be standing against the herd, even in a small way, you can provoke a change in their direction. Very quickly a loose, meandering herd can become a focused stampede heading right for you.
Lyra knew the risks and sometimes heeded warnings of caution in her writing. She had the emotional intelligence to recognise how badly others had been treated whenever they departed from conventional wisdom. But Lyra could also be brave and intuitive in her dispatches. Her hunger for a story shone through, from Tweets to text messages with friends, and, as we see in Lost, Found, Remembered, in the very best of her journalism.
Lyra had a rare talent for investigative reporting. I don’t mean in the sense of her having the best sources, or the most original of stories, or even in the volume of work she generated. What I really mean is her imagination as a writer. This creative impulse is evident in this posthumous collection published by Faber. Lyra painted on a broad canvas. She paid attention to the causes and drivers of conflict, grappling with complex theories like the intergenerational transmission of trauma or the socio-economic effects of a largely negative peace. Her stories were vivid portraits of people deeply affected by war, peace and discrimination.
Lyra was a champion of many causes and she walked proudly in PRIDE in Belfast each year when it was by no means always fashionable to do so. As a gay woman, she wrote about the challenges facing the LGBT community in the conservative backwoods of Northern Ireland. ‘The fight for equality is as much a fight for hearts and minds as it is a courtroom battle,’ she wrote. By standing up for what she believed in, Lyra often invited harsh words from her critics. Yet, despite suffering occasional online bullying and harassment, she remained perpetually optimistic about human nature.
People were capable of amazing feats. Lyra had seen this first-hand. She watched her ‘friends and family members cope with the trauma of what they could not forget.’ In an unpublished story in Lost, Found, Remembered, we find Lyra and a friend search for a missing boy on the Cave Hill overlooking Belfast. This story was part of her investigation into the suicide epidemic gripping Northern Ireland in the 16 years after the Good Friday Agreement. Some 3,709 people took their own lives, bypassing the number who died in armed conflict in the 30 years up until 1998. It is difficult to understand why they did so in such great numbers, though, as Lyra observed, this placed Northern Ireland in the top quarter of the international league table of suicide rates.
As a reporter, Lyra was often reticent about covering stories with a paramilitary theme. Her first book, Angels with Blue Faces, was a re-examination of the cold case murder of 40-year-old South Belfast MP Robert Bradford and another man, 29-year-old Ken Campbell, who were shot dead by the Provisional IRA on 14 November 1981. Lyra uncovered new leads in the killing, including how the RUC’s Special Branch had ‘received information from not one but two agents inside the IRA, telling them an attack was going to happen.’ Lyra even uncovered the names of the alleged perpetrators, who she anonymised in her book. In an essay in Lost, Found, Remembered, she records how:
Lyra had a rare talent for investigative reporting. I don’t mean in the sense of her having the best sources, or the most original of stories, or even in the volume of work she generated. What I really mean is her imagination as a writer. This creative impulse is evident in this posthumous collection published by Faber. Lyra painted on a broad canvas. She paid attention to the causes and drivers of conflict, grappling with complex theories like the intergenerational transmission of trauma or the socio-economic effects of a largely negative peace. Her stories were vivid portraits of people deeply affected by war, peace and discrimination.
Lyra was a champion of many causes and she walked proudly in PRIDE in Belfast each year when it was by no means always fashionable to do so. As a gay woman, she wrote about the challenges facing the LGBT community in the conservative backwoods of Northern Ireland. ‘The fight for equality is as much a fight for hearts and minds as it is a courtroom battle,’ she wrote. By standing up for what she believed in, Lyra often invited harsh words from her critics. Yet, despite suffering occasional online bullying and harassment, she remained perpetually optimistic about human nature.
People were capable of amazing feats. Lyra had seen this first-hand. She watched her ‘friends and family members cope with the trauma of what they could not forget.’ In an unpublished story in Lost, Found, Remembered, we find Lyra and a friend search for a missing boy on the Cave Hill overlooking Belfast. This story was part of her investigation into the suicide epidemic gripping Northern Ireland in the 16 years after the Good Friday Agreement. Some 3,709 people took their own lives, bypassing the number who died in armed conflict in the 30 years up until 1998. It is difficult to understand why they did so in such great numbers, though, as Lyra observed, this placed Northern Ireland in the top quarter of the international league table of suicide rates.
As a reporter, Lyra was often reticent about covering stories with a paramilitary theme. Her first book, Angels with Blue Faces, was a re-examination of the cold case murder of 40-year-old South Belfast MP Robert Bradford and another man, 29-year-old Ken Campbell, who were shot dead by the Provisional IRA on 14 November 1981. Lyra uncovered new leads in the killing, including how the RUC’s Special Branch had ‘received information from not one but two agents inside the IRA, telling them an attack was going to happen.’ Lyra even uncovered the names of the alleged perpetrators, who she anonymised in her book. In an essay in Lost, Found, Remembered, she records how:
I’m working on a story that requires me to ask questions about dangerous people. Every day, I wonder if they’re going to find out and do something about it.
One of the men who was involved in the murder of Robert Bradford lived not far from Lyra’s family home in North Belfast. The other gunman is thought to now belong to the same group of militant republicans who murdered Lyra on 18 April 2019.
Lost, Found, Remembered is a tribute to Lyra McKee’s tenacity, her fun-loving spirit and the compulsion she felt in bearing witness to the tragedy of the place she was proud to call home.
Lost, Found, Remembered is a tribute to Lyra McKee’s tenacity, her fun-loving spirit and the compulsion she felt in bearing witness to the tragedy of the place she was proud to call home.
Lyra McKee, 2020, Lost, Found, Remembered. Faber & Faber, 208 pp., £12.99. ISBN-13 : 978-0571351442
⏭ Aaron Edwards is the author of Mad Mitch’s Tribal Law: Aden and the End of Empire and UVF: Behind the Mask. His new book, Agents of Influence: Inside Britain’s Secret Intelligence War Against the IRA, is due to be published by Merrion Press in 2021.
⏭ Aaron Edwards is the author of Mad Mitch’s Tribal Law: Aden and the End of Empire and UVF: Behind the Mask. His new book, Agents of Influence: Inside Britain’s Secret Intelligence War Against the IRA, is due to be published by Merrion Press in 2021.
Aaaron - another one to read.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sending it the way of TPQ.
Lyra died furthering something whereas those who took her life have furthered nothing.
Ironically, the people who gave her most hassle during her life were not those who eventually killed her. It was her so called colleagues - one of whom she went to the PSNI about, the abuse and stalking was so bad.
They said there was nothing they could do about it.
Her trepidation is palpable from the review.
A tiny character who left a huge mark.