in it.’
The minister, elders and others from Jane’s congregation and community visited regularly. ‘People called with us for ages and ages after. Our Catholic neighbours, too. There is more of a bond in the country, so there is.’
There is a memorial for Alan in her church. ‘That will be there when we’re all gone.’ There is another memorial in the location where he died. ‘The Catholic priest was there when they dedicated it.’ The minister who was the Moderator when Alan died has stayed in touch, which means a lot. ‘It’s been some twenty-five years but he came up on a Sunday to our church not so terribly long ago and he visited the grave and took a photograph of the headstone.’
Each year on Remembrance Day, there’s a wreath laid at Alan’s memorial in the church. During the service, the congregation sings, ‘Be Still My Soul, the Lord is on Thy Side’. In the years after Alan’s death, Jane got through by praying and thinking about the words of that hymn. ‘At night, when things were dark and you would have liked to cry, you thought: Lord, be still my soul. Before you came to the end of it, you would have calmed down.’
No one was ever arrested for Alan’s murder. Jane has no desire to learn the identity of his killer.
Alan’s gone and me knowing who killed him isn’t going to ease the burden in any way. I wouldn’t like to be there when he’s meeting his maker. I wouldn’t want to be with him on his deathbed, either. He’ll think about it, for everybody has a conscience. Through my faith I know there will be a day of judgement and he’ll have to answer for it. For him to truly repent I think he would have to come here first of all, and meet whoever belongs to Alan.
Jane blamed the Rev. Ian Paisley for stirring up the hatred that led to her son’s death.
If Paisley had been more Christian, I don’t think Alan would be dead today. I think the Troubles would have gotten nowhere and there wouldn’t have been so many lives lost. And then when he got to the top, he sat down with a murderer. Whereas the likes of Gerry Fitt – he was a good man – but he wouldn’t have given him the time of day.
Jane’s late husband wanted to know who murdered their son. ‘Maybe my faith was stronger. I just leave it up to the day of judgement.’
‘You can’t go forward referring to the past.’
Alice and her 12-year-old son John were injured when a bomb exploded. They were hospitalised for weeks and John had a leg amputated. ‘The Troubles never bothered me that much until we were thrown into the middle of it all.’ After the blast, Alice couldn’t move, and she didn’t know what had happened to John. ‘I was lying in the street very badly injured. I couldn’t be moved. I was just left lying there till help arrived. I was coming in and out of consciousness. I kept thinking: why is nobody coming to help me?’ When she got to hospital, ‘I asked about John and everybody would have assured me he was fine. But he wasn’t.’
Two days after the incident, Alice’s minister came to her hospital bedside to tell her that her son had lost his leg. ‘It was good that my minister was there to break the news. My husband was in a bad state. He wasn’t able to deal with it all.’ John was moved to a bed beside his mother. ‘I don’t know if it was a good thing or not, for I had to witness a lot of his pain. Whenever he needed a doctor, he cried and cried. It took quite a while for somebody to come sometimes.’
John endured some complications from his surgery and fresh bouts of pain. Alice was thankful that her son came to view his situation positively. ‘He wasn’t positive to start off with, but he became positive. That was what saved me: the fact that he didn’t complain. He never once said, “Why did this have to happen to me?”’
Alice’s minister continued to visit. ‘I prayed a lot that everything would work out all right in the end. But apart from that, what can you do? The only people that could help us at the time were the medical people. It was up to them to put us back together again.’ Support came from other sources. Her husband was involved in rugby, and teams and fans from all over the island sent John souvenirs and notes of encouragement. ‘We found out that there was a lot more kindness than evilness after the bomb. On both sides. People were very kind. They would always ask how John was. I knew the support was there and I could have got more involved in church activities if I’d wanted, but I didn’t want to.’ John and her other sons no longer attend church. ‘Sure, that’s how it goes.’
John is enjoying a successful career. Neither mother nor son are defined by what happened to them. ‘I wasn’t full of hatred for those who had done it, for I couldn’t care less about them. I’d like to see justice, but it’s not going to be done in this life.’ For her, ‘Reconciliation is the only way. Most families in Northern Ireland have been touched in some way by the Troubles. You can’t go forward referring to the past.’
‘It was prayer that brought me back to life again.’
Lisa’s husband was murdered and she was seriously injured in the same incident. ‘It was a horrifying night. I remember everything that happened. I was never unconscious.’ Lisa was in hospital for many weeks and was confined to a wheelchair for five years. She has had 174 operations and still endures physical complications. ‘It has been very hard now, it has, because I had three of a family to bring up. Two of them were still at school.’
Lisa was in hospital when her husband was buried, so she couldn’t attend the funeral. Her minister and clergy from other denominations visited regularly. ‘At one stage, round my bed there was six people between ministers and priests, praying at the one time. There was always some ministers or priests at my bedside every day. They were very, very faithful to me. That’s what brought me here where I am now, the ministers and priests.’ Lisa believes, ‘It was prayer that brought me back to life again.’
On her husband’s first anniversary, her minister offered to conduct another service for him. ‘Presbyterians wouldn’t normally do a service for the first year. There was a very big turnout. I thought it was very nice of the minister offering to do that.’ Confined to her wheelchair and in considerable pain, Lisa didn’t attend church for about five years. ‘But my neighbours were all very good. The minister was very attentive. The Church of Ireland, the Presbyterian, and the priests – they never left me.’ Lisa also received counselling through a community organisation. ‘But I still do have nightmares and still waken up thinking about it and all the rest. It’ll never leave. But life has to go on for your family’s sake.’ The members of her congregation ‘rallied around me; they helped me all they could. I can’t say anything wrong about them because I would be telling a lie if I did.’
Despite ongoing struggles, Lisa isn’t bitter or angry.
I don’t hold any grudges, because no parent brings up a son or a daughter to go out and do the like of that. I wouldn’t meet them [those responsible for the incident], I wouldn’t face them but I wouldn’t go out looking for trouble. I know what I went through and I wouldn’t want anybody else going through it.
‘I didn’t know there were boys and girls who didn’t have all this going on in their lives.’
Jennifer grew up near the border and her father and grandfather were in the security forces. Her grandfather was killed when she was seven. ‘We also lost lots of friends of the family.’ A year after her grandfather died, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) ambushed the car when her father was driving Jennifer and her brother to school.
As bullets rained into the car, Jennifer’s brother jumped out and hid behind a hedge. He was not hit. Jennifer followed, but a bullet lodged in the back of her head. Jennifer’s father was not hit, so when the IRA sped away, he gathered the children in the car and drove back to
