A reading of the litany of the dead began at the Unitarian church on Dublin's St Stephen's Green at noon yesterday, the hour traditionally associated with the crucifixion of Jesus. It continued until well after 3 p.m., the time traditionally associated with Jesus's death.
"That it takes 3½ hours to read out the names of all those who have died in the Northern conflict is a tragedy in itself," said Chris Hudson, whose idea it was. The first such reading took place last year.
The litany was taken from the book Lost Lives, complied by David McKittrick, Séamus Kelters, Brian Feeney and Chris Thornton. The book begins with the shooting dead of John Patrick Scullion from west Belfast, a 28-year-old Catholic storeman killed by a loyalist gang in June 1966. The litany ended with the killing in February of 20-year- old postman Danny McColgan, another Catholic, by a loyalist gang in Belfast.
Yesterday's ceremony also marked the signing of the Belfast Agreement on Good Friday 1998. Then the North's death toll was 3,590. With Danny McColgan, it has risen to 3,661.
Mr Hudson, who is a member of the Unitarian Church where he is training to be a lay pastor, is also a trade unionist and a member of the Peace Train group. He began yesterday's proceedings with Isaiah.
"They shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."
Since the first reading of the litany last year, he said, the list of the North's dead had increased by 13. He told the congregation that what was planned was "a simple memorial to those who died, without prejudice to anyone's tradition and with respect for all".
Lay pastor Jennifer Flegg began the litany alphabetically, announcing the name of Anthony Abbott, death number 1,823. He was a 19-year-old soldier from Whitfield near Manchester who was shot dead by the IRA in Ardoyne in Belfast in October 1976.
Each person read for approximately 15 minutes during the ceremony, with readings from Ralph Waldo Emerson by Doireann Ní Bhriain, from James Simmons by Andy Pollak, and a meditation by the Rev Bill Darlison, on the hour each hour.
"And blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted" read the beatitude on a marble panel behind the lectern from which all names were read.
On March 16th, two uniformed Dublin postmen accompanied Mr Hudson, in his role as organising officer of the Communications Workers Union, to Belfast to meet Northern colleagues. They brought five volumes of condolence for Danny McColgan, which they presented to the Northern postmen at a ceremony in a Belfast hotel.
It had been a very moving event, as was yesterday's.
