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Carson leads Stormont tribute at Workers’ Memorial Day ceremony
‘Let Lyra’s light continue to inspire hope for communities’
At a wreath-laying ceremony to mark Workers’ Memorial Day on April 29th in the grounds of Stormont, trade unionists stood in tribute to murdered journalist Lyra McKee.
The victim of the shooting in Derry at Easter
was recalled as “a journalist’s journalist” by Gerry Carson, joint cathaoirleach of the NUJ’s Irish Executive Council, who paid tribute to Lyra’s dedication and commitment to her profession. Organised by the Northern Ireland
Committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, the annual event marks the annual commemoration of those killed or injured in the course of their work. In his remarks to the cross-union
gathering, Gerry said: “Democracy dies in darkness. That’s the strapline which the Washington Post carries proudly on its website and on its front page. “However, when darkness threatens, it takes but one small candle to shine its light and point to a hope for much more brightness. That darkness fell swiftly just 10 days ago when a light which shone ever so clearly, was extinguished by the bullets fired by a criminal with death in his intent,” he said. “Lyra McKee, our journalist friend and colleague, so strong in her membership of the National Union of Journalists, a rising star of news and literature, a prize winner with prospects of a glittering career, cut down in the name of freedom, by the assailants who sent youth into cowardly action, will live on in the memories of those who held her dear,” Gerry said. “Darkness did indeed descend on the Creggan
district of Derry that evening, a community which had long thought that the mayhem of the all too recent past was fading into history. “And that darkness was enlightened by the
spotlights of world headlines when on the following day, politicians of all parties here joined together to inspire a hope that the candle which was Lyra, would shine ever more brightly in her death.
Gerry Carson addresses the Workers Memorial Day ceremony at Stormont.
“How she must have felt honoured when at her
funeral, there with her partner Sara, and her mother Joan and family, politicians from all shades from Ireland, and the United Kingdom, gathered to celebrate her life and renew that call for progress and more light on our failed political systems. “Journalists are killed worldwide for simply doing their job. And that is precisely why Lyra was on the streets of Derry ten days ago. She was doing her job. She was a journalist’s journalist. Let her death not be in vain. “And let her light continue to inspire hope for communities, for those marginalised for whom she was a committed advocate, and for those we entrust to act as our leaders,” he concluded.
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