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Anthony McIntyre  ⚑  Just how out of touch I am with Belfast life and death was brought home starkly early this year when I learned that a mother and son who had once been a part of my life had died, and not just recently. 

Kate Quinn

Fra Quinn

While time may have elapsed since their passing, memories of their decency and dignity have never receded, leaving me to feel driven to share my memories of them.

Even though such things are not intentional, being unaware of these events tends to leave a bad taste in the mouth, as if the value of those who died failed to register at a time when it should have. About that, little can be done. There is no wrong time to remember people. 

Kate Quinn died as far back as June 2020. She was one of those salt of the earth working class Clonard women who raised their families in the midst of the North's violent political conflict. There are so many people like her who have lived what the French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre once called authentic lives, yet in terms of public history remain anonymous. They never seek publicity or praise but just get on with the business of living, bringing up their children, tending to their families, while crucially making the lives of those around them easier than they otherwise would have been.

Kate's niece had found herself in prison. Her two beautiful children were immediately taken care of by her friend Anne. When I got out of prison and began taking care of the children, Kate was there for everything. She had reared four of her own so was wise to all the ailments and problems that children bump into, from grazes to fevers. Frequently, if one of the kids said they felt unwell, the stock response was something along the lines of hold on and I'll ask aunty Kate. The response from Kate would sometimes be that they were yanking my chain, particularly if the symptoms developed just before the start of a school day. She never proved wrong. On top of that, she was always on hand to take them at a moment's notice if I wanted to go on the beer or something. There, they always felt loved.

While on the work-out scheme from Maghaberry Prison I would regularly call into her home in Kilmore Close for breakfast and chew the fat, occasionally going out in the evening at the weekend for a beer with her husband Liam. He was a family man whose life had been impacted by the violence of the British state when his brother was murdered by the Parachute Regiment during the Ballymurphy Massacre in 1971. Kate wasn't greatly interested in politics, having a family first perspective which I much admired. By that stage I was bloated on political discussion after 17 years in jail. It was great to hear normal people talk about normal things rather than listening to jail ideologues waffling about grand strategies for changing the world. On that score I was as culpable as the rest of them.

Francis, Kate's son died just over two years after his mother , in September 2022. His life gone much too soon. One of four siblings - Liam, Lisa and Arleen, the others, all as warm and friendly as their parents - I found Fra great company, laid back and not one to get excitable anytime I was with him. On one occasion while out on a Christmas parole the two of us went down to the Foresters club somewhere around the Grosvenor. I had arranged to meet the brother of a late friend at that venue. Martin, or Rook as we knew him, had been in prison with me, visited me after his release but was shot dead by loyalists months earlier. I had no idea where the club was but Fra had been there before. It was as well he accompanied me as I left the worse for wear. Long years of forced sobriety are hardly the best preparation for pint guzzling in the pubs and clubs of West Belfast. I also got to meet Fra’s partner Jennifer with whom he would go on to have two children, Ellie & Aaron. 

Apart from the memories, death leaves little to be grateful for. But in these circumstances it was better that Kate died before Fra. No coffin is heavier than that of a child. Knowing the love and devotion she had for her children, the grief of outliving her son would have destroyed her. Mercifully, she was spared that. 

Kate and Fra were ordinary people doing what they regarded as ordinary things but who made extraordinary differences in the quality of the lives of those they reached out to. 

⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.

Kate & Fra Quinn

Anthony McIntyre  ⚑  Just how out of touch I am with Belfast life and death was brought home starkly early this year when I learned that a mother and son who had once been a part of my life had died, and not just recently. 

Kate Quinn

Fra Quinn

While time may have elapsed since their passing, memories of their decency and dignity have never receded, leaving me to feel driven to share my memories of them.

Even though such things are not intentional, being unaware of these events tends to leave a bad taste in the mouth, as if the value of those who died failed to register at a time when it should have. About that, little can be done. There is no wrong time to remember people. 

Kate Quinn died as far back as June 2020. She was one of those salt of the earth working class Clonard women who raised their families in the midst of the North's violent political conflict. There are so many people like her who have lived what the French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre once called authentic lives, yet in terms of public history remain anonymous. They never seek publicity or praise but just get on with the business of living, bringing up their children, tending to their families, while crucially making the lives of those around them easier than they otherwise would have been.

Kate's niece had found herself in prison. Her two beautiful children were immediately taken care of by her friend Anne. When I got out of prison and began taking care of the children, Kate was there for everything. She had reared four of her own so was wise to all the ailments and problems that children bump into, from grazes to fevers. Frequently, if one of the kids said they felt unwell, the stock response was something along the lines of hold on and I'll ask aunty Kate. The response from Kate would sometimes be that they were yanking my chain, particularly if the symptoms developed just before the start of a school day. She never proved wrong. On top of that, she was always on hand to take them at a moment's notice if I wanted to go on the beer or something. There, they always felt loved.

While on the work-out scheme from Maghaberry Prison I would regularly call into her home in Kilmore Close for breakfast and chew the fat, occasionally going out in the evening at the weekend for a beer with her husband Liam. He was a family man whose life had been impacted by the violence of the British state when his brother was murdered by the Parachute Regiment during the Ballymurphy Massacre in 1971. Kate wasn't greatly interested in politics, having a family first perspective which I much admired. By that stage I was bloated on political discussion after 17 years in jail. It was great to hear normal people talk about normal things rather than listening to jail ideologues waffling about grand strategies for changing the world. On that score I was as culpable as the rest of them.

Francis, Kate's son died just over two years after his mother , in September 2022. His life gone much too soon. One of four siblings - Liam, Lisa and Arleen, the others, all as warm and friendly as their parents - I found Fra great company, laid back and not one to get excitable anytime I was with him. On one occasion while out on a Christmas parole the two of us went down to the Foresters club somewhere around the Grosvenor. I had arranged to meet the brother of a late friend at that venue. Martin, or Rook as we knew him, had been in prison with me, visited me after his release but was shot dead by loyalists months earlier. I had no idea where the club was but Fra had been there before. It was as well he accompanied me as I left the worse for wear. Long years of forced sobriety are hardly the best preparation for pint guzzling in the pubs and clubs of West Belfast. I also got to meet Fra’s partner Jennifer with whom he would go on to have two children, Ellie & Aaron. 

Apart from the memories, death leaves little to be grateful for. But in these circumstances it was better that Kate died before Fra. No coffin is heavier than that of a child. Knowing the love and devotion she had for her children, the grief of outliving her son would have destroyed her. Mercifully, she was spared that. 

Kate and Fra were ordinary people doing what they regarded as ordinary things but who made extraordinary differences in the quality of the lives of those they reached out to. 

⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.

Anthony McIntyre Obituary

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