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

Two teenagers have been arrested, one 18, one 19.

Yes. I actually heard last night (urgh, hate that expression) that one of them handed themselves in at a police station voluntarily.

I only really started to learn about Irish/northern Irish history once I had left ni. We learnt none of it in school. It was virtually impossible to develop an objective view while entrenched in it all. And unfortunately once you no longer live there your views are pretty much seen as irrelevant.

My sympathy to Lyra's family and friends.
Just awful.
I was all set to visit Derry and watch Derry Girls in the coming months.
Interesting that the Telegraph ( English not Belfast ) has no mention of Lyra's murder on the front page today. The other English broadsheet papers did- excluding some tabloids.
I live in the Republic so haven't witnessed the Troubles personally.
I think more integrated education would be hugely beneficial.

You only have to read the comments under any news article posted on Facebook to see how deeply the hatred is still entrenched. Even topics that don't seem related to politics are hijacked by religious hatred.

And the worst part is that God has nothing to do with it.

@beanaseireann Integrated education only works if the children attending those schools have parents who have no affiliations with any dodgy groups/paramilitaries. All my children have attended integrated schools, from nursery to secondary, and the number of children who grow up to join, eg a Protestant flute band or who have a parent involved in a paramilitary group, etc is unbelievable. To me it makes a mockery of the whole system. They don't do much more on Irish/Northern Irish/British history than I remember doing - mine involved Linen Mills, emigration to the New World and the Potato Famine. They have done a bit about Michael Collins and de Valera that I didn't do at school but that's about it.

Thanks Solitudeisgreat.
I thought the parents who sent their children to integrated schools would be less inclined to be involved in extremism on both sides.

beanaseireann Nope - a lot go to them because it's the nearest school to their house. Like I said before it makes a mockery of the whole system. Don't get me wrong not everyone is like that but it only takes a few bad apples to spoil it for the rest. There's no point a teacher telling a child xyz for that child to go home and their parents tell them abc instead. It often feels like it's a losing battle.

Thank you. It's sad

I am from cregan, Derry. Thihgh I live in England now. I was injured in bombing as a child and mum moved us here.

Its hasnt changed that much. The changes are generally worse. Lots if my family are still there.

It amazes me how ignorant people are about how bad it still is, in some areas, even those living in better parts of NI.

My uncles who have seen the worst and live in this new 'peaceful NI' dont think there has been improvment either.

Im appalled that solitude and OP havd both had menaces trying/succeeding to get money .
What do they say?!

NaBiAgOl Ours was a "suggestion" that it might be a "good idea" to partake of his services. He was told exactly where to go - the far beside of beyond. We will not be dictated to by a bunch of knuckle-dragging, fantasist fuckwits. Excuse the language.

Im appalled that solitude and OP havd both had menaces trying/succeeding to get money .
What do they say?!

This happened to a relative of mine. The local hard man 'suggested' that they should pay him money, they declined, and sure enough their business was burnt to the ground and although they were insured, the time that it took for their money to come through meant that they lost a lot of customers as they were forced to go elsewhere, so eventually they were forced to retire.

This is, I'm sure, part of the reason that people are reluctant to build up to medium sized businesses. Better to stay small and under the radar. If your business is huge you're not at risk in the same way, and if you're small you don't have enough money to be a target. If you're in the middle...

We’re in the Republic but would visit Belfast often enough, sometimes for a day out shopping, others when family and friends visit from home. We were up three weeks ago and did the ‘Black Cab’ tour which I’ve done often over the years. Normally the drivers who give the tours are careful to be nonjudgmental (for the want of a better phrase), which must be difficult given their experiences. This time the driver was actually brutal and made it clear he hates the English. Our Polish visitors felt very unwelcome and we cut our trip short. I was actually planning on going up today too with two friends but after the sad murder of Lyra, we decided an afternoon in the garden with a drink was safer.
I recognise that the much of the awful behaviour was simply more underground but had hoped in time that Northern Ireland would shake off the dirt and become a strong region of its own. This feels like a kick in the guts, but like other posters, am disappointed that there’s very little on the main pages of British newspapers. Does Britain only care about NI if it’s going to leave, like a spoilt child grasping on to a toy it doesn’t like anymore?
My opinion is worth little. I’m not British or Irish, and although I studied the Troubles and the Free State in history, and my granny was from Tyrone, I recognise it doesn’t have the same psychological hold over me that the natives feel.

They new our kids names, my name (DH didnt tell me for 4 months) obviously where we live as they were sitting at the end of our road, our parents names and where they lived. And basically said it would be awful if anything happened to us/them. DH is not a hard man he didn't feel able to tell them to fuck off. Who knows that might have been all it took but i doubt it.When i found out i wanted to go the police but he had them.mostly paid down to the last 1.5k and didnt want to involve them. I felt it was his decision.

*knew

Chocolatepeanuts Our case was slightly different because he didn't know anything about us. We don't live near work. We do, however, have extensive CCTV which, when pointed out to him, made his face go as white as a sheet. The expression "as thick as mince" springs to mind in his case.

@solitude, that is awful, so scary. Not sure I could live with that, I'd be a nervous wreck. i hope that nothing happens to you and your family.

That is completely terrifying, nobody should have to live with that fear, or capitulate to extortion, and yeh, in Dublin we would be ABLE to be naive about ''peace''.

although, you sound on top of the situation, you don't sound scared! It helps when they're as thick as mince !!

@chocolatepeanuts, that is awful, your poor family having to go through that. This is what we never hear about. Ok, it was probably blather, and nobody died, but the anxiety and the fear and the sheer fucking THEFT of it. We don't hear about this. I'm really outraged for you

It just goes to show how bonkers the place is, if people who are menaced by thugs can’t or won’t go to the police. I think I’d be inclined to go and live somewhere more civilised if I could afford to.

@fluffiphlox I live in a beautiful part of this country and I will not be run out of it by a bunch of morons who think that they are going to achieve an united Ireland by demanding money off people. They can sod off on both those counts. The PSNI are, quite frankly, not fit for purpose. That is not meant as any disrespect to anyone who works in it but they have so many rules and dos and don'ts to follow that they never get anywhere. They spend far too much time pussyfooting around in case they cause offence to anyone and everyone knows it which is why they are met with a wall of silence wherever they go.

Well I have always assumed that these gangsters are everywhere! They're called paramilitaries here, but there are gangsters and gangs in every part of the uk. I couldnt live in a more beautiful place, the views from our house of the mountains countryside are unparalleled imo. I wouldnt swap it for the gang culture or the knife crime elsewhere in the uk. Not excusing what happened to us by any means, it was an awful time. But until that point, and I hope to never again- we were never touched my that shady underworld.

Oh I know it’s very beautiful and I would like to visit properly one day. Unfortunately my only experience of NI was a few days for work in Belfast. And of course there is crime everywhere but it does seem quite wrong that normal law-abiding citizens can’t or won’t report extortionists to the police.