Journalist Lyra McKee shot dead in Derry in April by New IRA terrorists
Robert McClenaghan, who has admitted planting bombs in Belfast during the Troubles, is a member of the Victims and Survivors Forum.
It has been reported that the former IRA man is also a director of the organisation Paper Trail, which is due to receive a share of proceeds from the late Lyra McKee’s book “Angels With Blue Faces”.
The book is about a five-year investigation by Ms McKee into the IRA killing of MP Robert Bradford in 1981.
Ms McKee was shot dead by a New IRA gunman during rioting in Derry on Thursday, April 18 while observing a riot in Creggan.
As per Lyra’s swishes, some of the money from the book will go to Paper Trail, which works closely with human rights and victims’ groups that represent families affected by the conflict.
The organisation is registered with the Charity Commission and Companies House, and lists Mr McClenaghan as being on the charity trustee board and being a company director. Paper Trail’s activities are funded by the EU’s Peace IV programme.
Mr McClenaghan revealed in a 2011 documentary that he was “immensely proud” of joining the IRA and said it was his “daily job” to plant bombs around Belfast.
As a result of the admission Jackie Nicholl resigned from the forum after he was made aware of Mr McClenaghan’s past. Mr Nicholl’s 17-month-old son was killed in a no-warning IRA bomb on the Shankill Road in 1971.
Mr McClenaghan’s grandfather Philip Garry was killed in the McGurk’s bar bomb in 1971, and he was appointed to the Victims and Survivors Forum in 2017.
Speaking to the News Letter, Mr McClenaghan said he was not sorry for his actions as an IRA bomber and did not believe they were wrong.
“But that was when I was a child. That was when I was a teenager,” he said.
“That was when I was growing up in the middle of the conflict.
“Now I’m trying to go in a different direction by promoting peace, reconciliation and trying to bring together people. That’s what we do. That’s what Paper Trail does.”
Mr McClenaghan told the newspaper that he believes the “Orange State” had to be destroyed by armed action.
“I believe the Orange state was never going to give up its power and privilege and the whole sectarianism they perpetrated for 50 years before they were brought down in 1972,” he said. “So you had to destroy the Orange state in my opinion.”
Asked whether that task could only be accomplished by bombs, guns and killing people, he replied: “Unfortunately yes. It had to be destroyed. There’s no easy way. But that was in the ‘70s. Now we’re in a completely different era politically, where you don’t need any type of violence from any quarter and specifically the group who killed Lyra.”
He said the difference between the killing of Ms McKee and the actions of the Provisional IRA was that there is was now a “political alternative”.
Asked if it was ironic that proceeds from the work of Lyra McKee will go to a group he is helping to run, he said: “She was a lovely human being. So to try and reduce it down to what you’re trying to say now I think it’s very disrespectful to Lyra’s memory.
“In the sense that you’re trying to make a point that Lyra would somehow disagree with my background. And she wouldn’t. She didn’t. We got on very well … Lyra was a person who would understand people. I don’t think you can.”
Ciaran MacAirt, secretary of Paper Trail, told the News Letter that Ms McKee had supported the organisation “at every stage”, helped launch its research and pilot group and sat on a steering group for the charity. He said he was “humbled” Paper Trail will get proceeds from her work.
The suspected New IRA killer who shot dead Lyra McKee in Derry’s Creggan on Thursday, April 18
“I believe that I can fulfil my role better if I meet every individual without pre-judgment or prejudice.”
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