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Beyond Today

Lyra McKee: what did she want us to know?

Beyond Today

BBC

News

4.61.1K Ratings

🗓️ 23 April 2019

⏱️ 22 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Lyra Mckee was killed at a riot in Londonderry last week. She was 29 and an acclaimed journalist who wrote about the Troubles and campaigned for LGBT rights. Since then the dissident republican group the New IRA have claimed responsibility for her death and apologised to her family. Her funeral on Wednesday is expected to be attended by thousands of people. We speak to three people connected to Lyra: Leona O’Neill was there the night she was killed, Aoife Moore grew up on the estate in Derry where she died, and Professor Siobhan O’Neill from Ulster University worked with Lyra researching trauma. They tell us what Lyra McKee would want us to know about Northern Ireland. Produced by: Philly Beaumont Mixed by Nicolas Raufast Editor: John Shields.

Transcript

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0:00.0

BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.

0:05.0

Hello, I'm Matthew Price.

0:08.0

This is Beyond Today from BBC Radio 4.

0:10.0

Every day we ask one big question about one big story.

0:14.0

Today, what did Lira McKee want us to know?

0:27.0

If any of you are uncomfortable with the thought of someone like me, please come up to me after this event and talk to me.

0:38.0

I won't bite your head off, I won't call you a homophobe, we'll just have a conversation, and I'll show you that I'm human just like you.

0:46.0

If you are comfortable with the thought of someone like me, have a conversation with someone who isn't

0:52.0

and try to change their mind because you could be saving a life.

0:55.0

I'd never heard of Lira McKee until last Friday morning when a video of her giving a TED Talk popped up in my timeline. So I watched it. That's the end of it. We just played you.

1:06.1

It's well worth watching the lot. And I wished that I had heard of her before. Her name was all over

1:11.9

the place that morning because she had been shot dead at a riot in Northern

1:16.1

Ireland the night before. She was 29. She was a respected journalist, a passionate campaigner for LGBT rights, and she was loved by so many people.

1:28.0

Lira's story tells you a lot about Northern Ireland today, and we've spoken to three different people who are connected to her story in different ways.

1:38.0

We'll start with Leona O'Neill, also a journalist, who was at the Riot last week, and who was there when Leara was shot. People were standing outside their houses there were young children there,, 9, and their mummies were telling them,

2:04.6

come up the street a bit in case you get hit by a bottle, but they were standing and viewing it.

2:08.3

And you know, there were women with their babies on their hip stand at their front door at their

2:13.7

front gate talking to neighbors while the petrol bombs and bricks were being thrown around.

2:19.5

And you know people from people who aren't from Northern Ireland might think that is strange but this is happening in their street

2:26.2

I'd say they're living in one though and they're just out there talking to their neighbors and there was no

2:34.4

You know, there was no threat. There was no kind of danger at that stage. Although petrol bombs were being thrown, people were videoing it and people were

2:38.4

chatting amongst themselves and groups. There were lines of teenagers filming it on their phones, and there were people walking

...

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