Journalist shot dead in Derry

[Chocolatepeanuts]

I cant see another post about this. 29 year old Lyra McKee shot dead when dissident republicans fire at police during riots. 21 years since the Good Friday agreement. Im frightened for our wee country and my children's futures.

Another family devastated .

www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-northern-ireland-47985469

No, I don’t.

But there’s no point in making that argument because with these particular criminals, it is relevant.

Sinn Fein condemn the shooting
m.youtube.com/watch?v=jhHjxnYjO1w

IvanaPee

A fair point.

IvanaPee I agree - education is key but who is going to oversee it? I can picture a meeting room with people arguing over what "really" happened on X date in 19XX. I think I have become so cynical and disillusioned with everyone that I struggle to see a way out of it. In my ideal world I would adopt a scorched earth policy on the whole lot of them and literally start from scratch.

I'm hoping some of our local councillors turn up at my door in the coming weeks before the elections but somehow I doubt they will. I think they will develop ostrich syndrome and stick their head in the sand and ignore everything that is going on around them. The only time I see any of our local councillors is on election day when they try to shove a leaflet in your hand as you walk into the local primary school to vote.

How can you take the green/orange divide out of it? As Ivana says, it's deeply entrenched in people's minds.

Honestly, Solitude - I don’t think there’s a way out of it. Certainly we won’t see it in our lifetime.

I don’t think it’ll ever change or ever get better. There will never be real peace.

It's so woefully tragic. That poor young innocent woman. My heart goes out to her partner and child. Been thinking of her all day since my husband shared the news with me.

Now, can I please vent my frustration that the perpetrators are most likely little shitheads who grew up after the GFA was in place and cannot fathom the hurt and pain and fear of growing up in a civil war zone.

I am in the republic. I'd love a united Ireland. (Never cared too much until UK showed their colours about he north lately via Brexit farce).
But I cannot and will not ever condone violence as a means to any end. I hope whoever knows something about what happened takes info to the police and that this type of terrorism is nipped in the bud sharpish. Lock up those gurrriers.

We have come too far to step back into that kind of situation. Because the only place it gets us is into cemeteries or left behind to mourn.

Everyone needs to cop the fk on.

That’s actually a really good point. They likely didn’t grow up with it, didn’t experience it, haven’t a clue about what it was like.

But their fathers and mothers, grandparents, uncles and aunties will all have their own versions of the truth and will instill that intolerance in generation after generation.

The cycle will continue and most of those under 30 won’t even really know why.

IvanaPee This is what depresses me so much about it though. We were promised the world on the back of the GFA but I fail to see it (I'm old enough to remember before and after). Okay we don't have as many road blocks/security checks etc but there is still a lot of other stuff going on in the background if you look closely enough. As I said earlier it simply changed face.

Yep. I think it was easier to pretend it wasn’t there pre-Brexit.

IvanaPee Do you actually think Brexit made a difference? That's a genuine question. I can't see much difference before or after the result of the referendum. I think it's simply used as another excuse for some people to run riot.
I agree about the remark made about people not knowing/being alive before the GFA. I did read somewhere that young people are deliberately targeted for anti-social behaviour because they can't be prosecuted due to their age. They don't seem to consider that it may effect their later life/jobs etc.

MissEliza
If any of us knew that we would hopefully be running for parliament in order to make it happen!

Depressing how anything can be justified as a ‘means to an end’ isn’t it.

I think SolitudeIsGreat is right in order to be able to truly move forward it would have to be a ‘scorched earth’ policy.

I also think without the ‘cover’ of being a Republican/Unionist then it would be a lot easier to flush the organised crime/gangs out as people would be a lot less sympathetic to them.

Such an awful thing to happen to anyone it’s literally heart breaking I haven’t got her or her girlfriend out of my head today. It sounds as if she was a very talented young girl with everything to live for. Devastating news.

I did read somewhere that young people are deliberately targeted for anti-social behaviour because they can't be prosecuted due to their age. They don't seem to consider that it may effect their later life/jobs etc.

I think that's half the problem and always has been. The lack of jobs and prospects have always been part of what dragged people into paramilitary organisations in the first place. After all, even at the height of the troubles the people on the Malone Road etc weren't having to deal with rioting etc

Solitude, I don’t think it’s made a difference per se.

More that it’s highlighted just how unresolved things were. The backstop really was the shit that hit the fan.

Because it just went to show that while everyone was happy to make believe things had changed, when it came down to it there were two definite sides with two completely conflicting ideas of what they wanted, and a serious lack of interest in or even ability to compromise.

There is no compromise, that’s the problem.

There are a few self-serving politicians pulling emotive, bigoted strings on both sides.

Brexit just made it that bit more obvious.

Might be a bit simplistic, and sadly it doesn't apply in this case, but if anything helps in the long run, it'll be humour.

I see a lot of young people from both "sides" and they all take the absolute piss out of each other and their respective backgrounds. It can sound absolutely brutal to an outsider, but they think it's hilarious. I see similar online in the LAD, ulster fry type sites. A lot of the older generations will politely pretend they don't know someone is one or the other, but the younger lot will just laugh at the whole thing.

isabellerossignol I agree that the area you grew up in plays a huge part. I lived in a big council estate, similar to the Creggan, when I was younger and my parents worked all hours to get us out of there. I now live in very nice area but when I run into some people I used to know back then I am so glad my parents worked their fingers to the bone because our lives now are like chalk and cheese. They have the mentality that what happens in the estate stays in the estate and the very idea of reporting someone to the PSNI would bring them out in a cold sweat! That is the mentality you have to tackle/work with.

isabellerossignol I do agree that the area that you grew up in influences your outlook. I lived in a similar council estate to the Creggan when I was younger and I am forever grateful to my parents for working all hours to get us out of there. I live in a lovely area now but when I run into people from there nowadays the idea that they would report anything to the PSNI would bring them out in a cold sweat! Their mentality seems to be that what happens in the estate stays in the estate - which brings us all back to square one.

Oops - the internet cut out.

My heart goes out to Lyra's partner & family.
Such a waste of a promising life.
Originally from the city, hate what's currently happening there.
Agree with above posters that the terrorists haven't gone away, both sides have "diversified", we were promised the world with the good Friday agreement (remember the tv adverts) and it just hasn't happened.
The level of deprivation in areas like this, especially in the city has been left to fester and is a perfect breading ground for children to be groomed (no other word for it) by "armchair commanders" with a rose-tinted view of the past.
It was a standing joke when the dup got their money from the tories that it would be a miracle if any of it made it as far as the city.
Northern Ireland has been left without a government for too long, we don't have Mo Molam to bash heads together, nobody similar, and they're too busy with brexit.
Brexit might be the stick that poked the sleeping grizzly bear in the eye, but as above posters have said (& heard myself when visiting) was the grizzly bear actually asleep??
Think the reasons why this is major news is that a life has been lost, think there is an agreement with the media to not give dissident action coverage unless there is very serious injury or loss of life.
Hoping that the parents of those responsible take heed of Lyra's message and sit their children down and have a serious discussion with them as it is the only way we can hope to remove the bigotry that allows the situation to continue.

Would also like to hear from Reggie Yates (radio silence & tumbleweed as far as I can see at moment which I think is insulting given Lyra was a "fellow journalist") as he was in the area filming at the time, have a horrible feeling the fact he was there filming and suddenly there's a kid with a gun and/or psni just happen to decide to do a raid? Someone might have been playing at being the "big man" for the film crew? Or then again that might be me being cynical.

"Okay we don't have as many road blocks/security checks etc but there is still a lot of other stuff going on in the background if you look closely enough. As I said earlier it simply changed face."

Do you really believe this? Sorry to just quote one comment, I know lots are saying the same. I also hear it a lot from family.

I left around the time of the Good Friday Agreement. Things feel so different when I go back. I get there are a lot of problems but I still feel confused about how anyone who grew up in the Troubles can feel it's as bad.
I appreciate I don't live there anymore.

Terribly sad loss of Lyra McKee. I watched her TED talk and its heartbreaking.

I'm utterly shocked and saddened by this today. My ex is from Derry and grew up just around the corner from the Creggan estate in the 70s and is still deeply affected by what he witnessed and lived through, this will have brought back awful memories for so many. My ex-sil lives on the Creggan with her children and I'm terrified for those poor children. We cannot have another generation of Northern Irish children growing up surrounded by this.

The UK needs to take responsibility, stop treating NI like a problematic relative they can ignore and help to create a more prosperous and hopeful country. Those growing up on the Creggan are disenfranchised and stigmatised. That doesn't excuse violence of course, but 21 years after the GFA there needs to be a renewed look at the UK's relationship with NI, and we need to find a way to get Stormont back up and running. With no active assembly in NI and SF not taking their seats in Westminster, many people in NI just aren't being represented or having their voices heard.

RIP Lyra, such a sad and wasteful loss of life.

Justanothershow I don't just think it, I know it. As I said near the start of this thread the people who were involved in the Troubles back in the 1980s and 1990s simply changed tack. They may not swan around the street as Joe Bloggs, Paramilitary Leader but they do it as Joe Bloggs, "Community Leader". Punishment beatings/kneecapping still occur but it's under the guise of drugs/anti-social behaviour not paramilitary related and that makes the crime statistics look better but who do you think supplies the drugs that leads to the anti-social behaviour? No one who had any kind of "power" back in the day was going to give it up easily, they simply diversified. I know someone (in his 50s) who has never worked a day in his life and he drives around in a brand new Range Rover (we can't afford one and we are reasonably well off compared to most). He even parks it outside the Jobcentre when he goes to sign on - why is he not investigated for benefit fraud?

I was shocked when I moved to NI in 2001 by how little we on the mainland hear about what really goes on. The local news reported beatings and dissident gang-related violence on a nightly basis, which we never heard about in the British press. It was as if after the GFA the UK felt they had done their bit and left NI to it.

The town I grew up in is an interesting example of how things have changed since the GFA and not necessarily in a good way. When I was a child in the 80s there were no Protestant estates and Catholic estates, people generally lived side by side. It was fairly easy because it was a country town that had only the occasional bomb and shooting, it wasn't like Belfast or Derry. Now, 20 years later, it is largely segregated. Protestants live in one side of town and Catholics in the other, and people don't mix any more. There are constant low level sectarian tensions under the surface.

It's weird because none of that existed in the bad old days.

On the other hand, the country as a whole is much safer, so is this the price we have to pay? I wish I knew the answer.