In April 2019 journalist Lyra McKee was shot dead while observing a riot in Derry. Here her partner, family and friends talk about her life, and assess her place in Northern
Irish history
On a cold, grey afternoon in late February, I go with Sara Canning to the Creggan housing estate in Derry, where, almost a year ago on the night of 18 April, 2019, her partner, the young journalist Lyra McKee, was shot dead while observing a riot there. Before we leave, I ask Sara if she is sure she wants to revisit the site. “This is my city,” she replies, “and I am free to go where I want; they are not going to take that away.”
“They” are the New IRA, who remain a palpable presence in Derry despite the public backlash directed at them after they admitted responsibility for Lyra’s death. The Creggan is their turf, a sprawling housing estate on a hill above the Bogside and the Free Derry wall. These estates were on the frontline of the Troubles in Derry and, alongside the civil rights murals that mark the beginning of the Troubles, there are now others eulogising the IRA’s “Men of Violence”, and a sculpture of Easter Lily, the symbol of Irish republicanism, now stands near the Free Derry wall. Fifty years after the Troubles began in this city, local youths are once again being recruited to the cause of violent Irish republicanism. Recently, there has been an attendant rise in punishment shootings of those accused of drug dealing and joyriding.