SINN FÉIN deputy leader and Dublin MEP Mary Lou McDonald was among participants at the solemn reading of names in Dublin yesterday of all those who died in the Troubles.
The event, the only service of its kind in Ireland, was the ninth Good Friday in succession for it to take place at the Unitarian Church on St Stephen’s Green.
Beginning at noon, the reading of over 3,500 names, in alphabetical order, was completed by approximately 3pm, with participants reading names aloud for 15-20 minutes.
It was the first time a Sinn Féin politician took part. Ms McDonald, who wore an Easter lily, said she had not been asked to take part before but was “really delighted to be invited to do so”.
She said: “I suppose when you hear the names you realise the scale of the loss involved and above all the number of families that are still grieving. For me as a republican and at Easter in particular, you remember just how far we have travelled and just how far we have to go.”
She also said it was a time of year when republicans, whose aim was Irish unity, “think about what must be done in terms of reconciliation in Ireland. Above all there is no going back”.
Listening to the names, Ms McDonald said she recognised again that “death doesn’t discriminate in terms of people’s politics and republicans have always railed against any hierarchy of victims”.
She said remembrance had “a very important purpose” in a healthy society.
Names Ms McDonald read began with Samuel Gunning (55), a Protestant who was killed by an IRA bomb and gun attack at the Bayardo bar on the Shankill Road in August 1975, and ended with Winston Howe (35), one of two RUC officers killed by an IRA bomb on the Lisnaskea Road near the Border in February 1980.
Rev Bill Darlison, minister at the Unitarian church, said that in December it had been decided to end the names ceremony. Then, with the murders of soldiers Mark Quinsey and Patrick Azimkar, and PSNI constable Stephen Carroll, last month it was felt the ceremony should be continued again this year.
