26 THURSDAY DECEMBER 11 2008 Faith matters Religious Affairs Correspondent: William Scholestel: 028 9033 7544 email: w.scholes@irishnews.com

Lessons from a long and hardjourney towards reconciliationDealing with the pastand the legacy of theTroubles remainsone of the biggestissues facingNorthern Ireland.Alan McBride, whosewife was killed in anIRA bomb in 1993,tells Noreen Erskineabout his own hardjourney towardsreconciliation

ALAN MCBRIDE’S life hastaken many unexpectedturns since he lost his wifeand father-in-law in theIRA Shankill Road bomb in

Belfast 15 years ago.Yet his decision to have a drink in

an Edinburgh pub with an ex-UVF life-sentence prisoner and a former IRAman led to what he calls “one of thestellar moments” of his life.He told them of how his 29-year-old

wife Sharon and her father JohnFrizell had been among the 10 peoplekilled in the fish-shop bombing on asunny Saturday afternoon in October1993.After he stopped speaking, he says

the IRA man touched his arm andlooked directly into his eyes. He thenadmitted the attack was wrong, say-ing he was sorry it happened.This was not the first time republi-

cans have apologised for the bomb.Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams didso shortly after the explosion.His remarks – that the bombing was

wrong and could not be excused –were largely drowned out by the out-cry which followed his decision to

help carry the coffin of the Shankillbomber, Thomas Begley.However, the comments of the IRA

man sitting in the pub “moved me toa place I had never been before”, MrMcBride said.“It was one of those stellar mo-

ments in my life because he ac-knowledged what had happened tome was wrong and didn’t try tojustify it.”Mr McBride, who works for Wave,

the cross-community organisationsupporting victims of the Troubles,met the two former paramilitarieswhile attending a conference in Edin-burgh on post-traumatic stress dis-order many years after the bombing.In turn, he listened to the twomen’s

stories of why they each became in-volved in the Northern Ireland con-flict which claimed more than 3,600lives.Mr McBride spoke of their en-

counter at a recent seminar in Ar-magh which focused on dealing withthe past. The seminar was organisedby the Hard Gospel Project, whichthe Church of Ireland set up to com-bat sectarianism and racism.The event took place as theConsultative Group on the Past,

chaired by Lord Eames and DenisBradley, prepares to publish its re-port early next year recommendingthe best way to tackle the legacy ofthe past.During the seminar, Mr McBride re-

called his childhood in the Westlandhousing estate in north Belfast, a loy-alist enclave surrounded by predom-inantly nationalist and republicancommunities.At the time of the Ulster Workers

Strike in 1974, when he was just 10years old, his father joined the UDAand helped man the barricadeserected at the end of his street.A member of his local Baptist

church, he met his future wife,Sharon, there through their shared

interest in voluntary work withyoung people belonging to the Boys’and Girls’ Brigades.Describing himself as coming from

a traditional evangelical background,his faith was to be sorely tested bythe despair that enveloped him afterthe Shankill bombing.He said: “The weeks and months

that followed the bomb were ex-tremely difficult. I couldn’t go near achurch at all.”Instead, he spent much of his time

walking around the slopes and sum-mit of the Cave Hill area overlookingBelfast as he struggled with his grief.His first visit into the city centre

several weeks later, to do someChristmas shopping with his daugh-ter Zoe, then aged two, was also toprove a difficult time.

While there, he met a womanwhose elderly father had died a fewweeks earlier.She told him she understood ex-

actly what he was going through.“She was trying to be nice but with

the best will in the world, she had noidea of what I was going through,” hesaid.“Her father was an old man and his

death followed the natural order ofthings, while Sharon was only 29 andwe had been married for just six orseven years.“The lesson I learnt from that was

that everyone’s situation is differentand you need to watch what yousay when talking to people who aregrieving.”Around this time, he became in-

volved with Families Against Intimi-dation and Terror. He says theorganisation, where he spent twoyears as a volunteer, provided himwith an outlet for his anger.“I was angry. I was never a violent

person, so I was never going to join aparamilitary organisation but Iwanted to do something with myanger,” he said.“I got involved in quite a lot of high-

profile protests highlighting theabuse of human rights by terroristorganisations, including when GerryAdams was given the right tofundraise in America.“This was an affront to me, as my

memory of him was of him carryingthe coffin of the guy who murderedmy wife.”His campaign included writing a se-

ries of letters to the Sinn Fein presi-dent. He says most went unansweredbut that Gerry Adams did reply to hislast two letters, one of which Alan,who doesn’t speak Irish, wrote “inpidgin Irish” with the aid of an Irishdictionary.During this time Alan was also writ-

ing letters to his wife, as well as mak-ing frequent visits to her grave.Within two years of her death, he hadwritten three thick volumes to her.Initially they were about howmuch

he was missing her but later hebegan reflecting in them on his up-bringing and why the Troubles hadcome about.“I started to ask questions about

it,” he said.“I do believe sectarianism played a

huge part in fuelling the conflict andkeeping it going. I know there weremore ideological reasons why somepeople got involved but the veryheart of it for me was that there wasthis divided society where sectarian-ism was fuelling and fanning theconflict.”In 1998 he said he would vote yes

for the Good Friday Agreement, inspite of his reservations over theearly release of paramilitary prison-ers which formed part of the agree-ment. Ten years on, Alan McBridefeared the recent political impasse atStormont was threatening to drawNorthern Ireland backwards.Speaking before the announcement

that the executive would resume itsmeetings on November 20, he wascritical of both Sinn Fein and the DUPconcerning the five-month stalemateover the devolution of policing andcriminal justice powers.Although he has married again and

found renewed happiness at a per-sonal level, the memory of thosedark days after the Shankill bombingremains a driving force in Alan’squest to help build a shared future.“The focus must be on reconcilia-

tion,” he said.“It’s not about apportioning blame,

or what-aboutery. It’s about showingsome understanding of the otherside and allowing people the space totell their stories.“One of the main learning points in

my story is that no two people arethe same. You have to let peoplemake their own journey and let themgo at their own pace but you can’t letthem hold up progress towardsreconciliation.”

■ The Church of Ireland establishedthe Hard Gospel Project in 2005 totackle sectarianism and racism andto face the challenges of historicdifference in the Ireland of the 21stcentury.

“You have to letpeople maketheir ownjourney and letthem go at theirown pace butyou can’t letthem hold upprogresstowardsreconciliation”

Alan McBride

“It’s not aboutapportioning blame,or what-aboutery.It’s about showingsome understandingof the other sideand allowing peoplethe space to telltheir stories”

Alan McBride

■ CONSULTATION: AlanMcBride from the Wave traumacentre with junior ministersJeffrey Donaldson, left, and GerryKelly, right, following theannouncement of a consultationon a new strategy for victims andsurvivors

PICTURE: Mal McCann