We woke on Good Friday to the awful news of the murder in Northern Ireland of a brave young journalist, Lyra McKee.
Most of us in the rest of the UK too often take Northern Ireland’s peace for granted and rarely think much about the anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement each year.
But 21 years on, Lyra’s tragic death should make us think again.
There were 15 bombing incidents and 56 casualties of paramilitary style attacks in Northern Ireland last year – yet most got little public or media attention on this side of the Irish Sea.
The fragile politics and security of Northern Ireland are ignored too often, even though this is happening in our own country.
We’ve come a long way since the big paramilitary groups announced ceasefires over two decades ago, but the hardline dissident thugs have not gone away and the political process is still unstable.
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There could not be a more stark reminder of the need to protect the Good Friday Agreement in our own political system, and in the Brexit process too.
Lyra was a talented journalist who wrote movingly about mental health, spoke out for LGBT rights and is a great loss to journalism as well as to her loved ones.
She wrote powerfully about the legacy of the troubles and was reporting that night on violent clashes in Derry.
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She had written: “We were the Good Friday Agreement generation, destined never to witness the horrors of war but to reap the spoils of peace. The spoils just never seemed to reach us.”
For the sake of Lyra’s generation, and all those who need a future based on peace, we need a renewed commitment from all sides to the political process to show that violence never wins.
