bad times

So 25 years ago a massacre took place in a small settlement called Greysteel. It was said to be reprisal for a devastating bomb in the Shankill Road Belfast earlier that week. What many people may forget is that as well as these two hate filled attacks, there were a number of "single murders" during the two incidents and that the total number of murders for that week claimed the lives of 26 people. Like many,  I have lived through what we euphemistically call "the troubles" in this place I call home. I have lost friends, I have attended funerals, and peace rallies too mant to recount. I wore the peace badges, I attended the prayer vigils and each time there was another atrocity, I felt "surely this is the end?"
But it wasn't.
We now live in a more peaceful time, where we don't waken up to news stories about murder and mayhem. However, prejudice still hides in dark corners, and inhabits the hearts of some people - a few of whom, just a few days ago, were able to justify shooting a man in front of his teenage daughter who offered her money box if they didnt shoot her Daddy. Why?
Hatred. power, being certain that "we" are right and "they are wrong", a vigilante complex?? I have no answers.
25 years ago 200 people faced 2 gunmen who entered the Rising Sun bar and shouted "Trick of Treat?" One of the 2 having emptied his gun cartridge into the bar, calmly re-loaded and fired again. The stories of this community's terror remain but one milestone in our mangled history. I don't know how any one began to put their lives together after such an event. I do know that I do not want another generation to imbibe a hatred such as motivated the action. We need to work together to ensure that this violent history remains in the past where it belongs and to this end to do everything we can to be peacebuilders. While we can't change the past we can create a better future