Day of reflection event hears message of hope from sister of Disappeared victim

Operation Kenova chief Jon Boutcher and scores of families of Troubles victims gathered at Wave in Belfast for the event.

Dympna Kerr, whose brother Columba McVeigh remains missing after being murdered and secretly buried by the IRA, speaks about hope at a gathering at Wave Trauma Centre in Belfast (Rebecca Black/PA)

A day of reflection event for family and friends of those killed in Northern Ireland’s Troubles has heard a message of hope.

Operation Kenova chief Jon Boutcher and scores of people who lost loved ones attended the gathering at the Wave Trauma Centre on the longest day of the year.

Mr Boutcher, a former chief constable of Bedfordshire Police, has been working with a team of detectives for seven years investigating a series of Troubles crimes, including 200 murders as well as incidents of torture and kidnap.

During an event which included music from Wave’s Towards Inclusion choir, Dympna Kerr whose brother Columba McVeigh, a teenager from Co Tyrone, was abducted, murdered and secretly buried by the IRA in 1975, spoke about hope.

She was speaking after a visit to Bragan Bog in Co Monaghan where the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains (ICLVR) is continuing the search for her brother.

“For a long time all I could do was think about Columba, pray for him privately, now I can speak his name very loudly and am proud to say his name. His name is Columba McVeigh and I have words,” she said.

“I’m going to keep his name alive, and out there and fresh, and it’s going to be at the forefront of as many people’s minds as I can get it into. All we want is for Columba’s remains to be found, to bring them to our home in Donaghmore, take them into that church and then take them up to that cemetery and put him in the grave beside our mum and dad. I want Columba home.”

She added: “If you only carry one thing throughout your entire life, let it be hope. Let it be hope that better things are ahead, let it be hope that we can get through even the toughest of times.

“If you don’t have hope, you have nothing.

“Columba disappeared 47 years, seven months and 20 days ago, and I still have hope. I went to the site yesterday (Tuesday), it’s dismal but the team are up there, and they’re wonderful people. I still have hope that they are going to find him there.

“It’s the hope that motivates me to still campaign and lobby, and every chance I get I will take it.

“Hope is what unites us in this place. Columba’s name will never be dead as long as I have hope.”

Michael McConville, the son of Jean McConville who was abducted, murdered and secretly buried by the IRA in 1972 and whose remains were not found and recovered until 2003, spoke about his journey to forgiveness.

He described the 50-day search for her remains as very hard, with every day getting harder as they slowly covered the beach, but that he decided he had to forgive her killers.

“It was the hardest thing I ever had to do in my life, but not forgiving these people was ruining my life, it was turning me into a person that I wasn’t,” he said.

“After I forgave them, my life just turned right round. People ask me why I forgave them, I didn’t forgive these people for them, I forgave them for me. I wasn’t in a good place at the time and I wanted to leave that place.

“Forgiving people is not for everybody, but it was good for me.”

The event also heard from Gerry Armstrong, whose brother Paul was murdered in 1974, who read from his forthcoming book A Young Life Stolen, and Linda Molloy, whose 18-year-old son John was murdered in a sectarian attack in 1996, read from a collection of her poetry.

Dr Sandra Peake, CEO of Wave, said Ms Kerr spoke about hope in particularly poignant personal circumstances while the UK Government through its legacy Bill is “intent on removing hope from countless other victims”.

“Hope that one day, however slim the chances are, that someone will be held to account for their loved one’s murder,” she said.

“Hope that they will get the kind of information that Operation Kenova is providing but which the Government wants to limit by their own test of ‘reasonableness’.

“Hope that there would be recognition that what happened to their loved one mattered while the Government is telling them that it is no longer of any interest to the state.

“And the Government says it is doing this to victims and survivors in the name of ‘reconciliation’.

“Shame on them.”