Sunday April 3rd, a very special day in Ireland, Mothers Day, a so called “Hallmark Holiday”, in which sons and daughters across the island shower affection and thanks on their mothers. Mighty women, who are always there when needed; they are the bank vaults in which sons and daughter deposit their worries, hopes, aspirations and fears, and after their deposit is finished, they feel safer and happier, knowing that their deposits are in expert hands.
For a lot of mothers around the world, Mother’s Day is a happy and joyous occasion, but for one mother, in Omagh, Co. Tyrone, it is indeed a very dark day. That morning Nuala Kerr, a widow, arose from a sleepless night, knowing that she would not see one of her four children again. Her twenty five year old son Ronan was the victim of a car bomb the day before as he travelled to work. He had recently graduated as an officer within the Police Service of Northern Ireland. He joined the service wanting to make a difference, and he made the ultimate sacrifice as an officer, he laid down his life, in the line of duty.
I am still lost and bewildered by this atrocity, and I am finding it hard to make any real sense as to what killing this twenty five year old will achieve.
Our country is under severe pressure at the moment, we are in the midst of the worst recession we have ever seen, we have a government that clearly doesn’t know what they are doing. The world’s media spotlight is generally on Ireland and it’s worsening economic climate on a daily basis, but on Mothers Day it was shining for a different reason, a police officer was blown to death, as he headed to serve and protect his community.
Of course there is speculation as to why Ronan was killed, he was a new officer to the police service, he was on the beat and assigned to community policing, so therefore he wasn’t investigating anyone in particular. He was shadowing the community he policed, he was responding to routine calls, answering the public’s call, when they needed help the most, he was there, and willing the to assist them. Then his beliefs were questioned, he was a Catholic, he believed in God Almighty himself, and wasn’t afraid to say what religious beliefs he held.
We are in 2011, surely when one of us are in trouble, and we dial 999 and ask for police assistance, are we really that worried about who is going to respond to our call for help? Whether they be man, woman, black, white, yellow, gay, straight, lesbian, catholic, Muslim, protestant, does it really matter? What you can be assured is, that the men and women responding to your call for help, will indeed help if they can. Northern Ireland Police Officers, along with their counterparts down south within An Garda Siochana, are possibly the best-trained officers in the world. When they respond to a call for help, they don’t racially profile whom they help or assist, is it fair that we racially profile them?
Ronan Kerr believed in the peace process, he believed in the police service that he signed up too, he wanted to make a difference and be a part of a better-united Ireland. I am sure when he joined the service, he was full of ambitions as to where his career would take him, he wanted to help where he could, he wanted to make Northern Ireland safe for all those that live there, however he was cut down as he started his journey, by men and woman, who are members of a cowardly organisation whose only agenda is to upset and derail the peace process, and return the north to the dark days of the past.
Ronan Kerr was targeted simply because he was a Police Officer, because he decided to stand up to these cowardly terrorist organisations and say enough is enough! Every citizen in Ireland, must follow the law, it is there for a reason, yet everyday, thousands of men and women put on their uniforms, and take to the streets to uphold the law. They do it for the benefit of the ordinary decent citizen, in order to make us feel safe, so they we can sleep soundly at night. If we ever need these men and woman in uniform, they respond to our cry for help.
Day in, day out we look at television coverage of the conflicts overseas, Libya and Ivory Coast, hundreds of people have been butchered and killed for there beliefs, for the god they believe in, for the opinions they voice, and we think to ourselves, there all mad over there, but yet it is happening in Ireland, and the Irish people are standing by and watching on, this needs to change, we need to voice our opinions, and let them be heard, we need to not be afraid of the consequences, and we really need to want to make the change.
How many other Police Officers should loose their lives before we the citizens say enough is enough, this can’t go on. The officers that police our streets know the risks, they are willing to lay down their lives for the good of the country, for the citizens they serve and protect, for the badge they wear. People fail to realise that these people in uniform are people too; they have families at home waiting for them to return safely.
The people of Ireland need to wake up and see what is happening, there are terrorists walking among us, whose only wish is to kill, maim and to do injustice to all. We can stop them, if we all work together, a terrorist is powerless without fear, we need not to be afraid. We all need to have all our voices heard, we need to stand together as a united Ireland, both north and south, and we need to be strong.
We need to remember that Ronan Kerr was a police officer, he was determined to make a difference, his religion had nothing to do with his death, and he was murdered in cold blood, simply because he was making a difference to the peace process of Ireland.
The people that carried out this attack, and took Ronan from us at a young age, they want to strike fear into the hearts of the people of Ireland, they want to undermine the institution that is the Police Service of Northern Ireland and all those that are working together for one Ireland.
We can't let this happen, we need to stand up, be seen, be heard, be relentless in our quest for peace, for the generations that have gone before us, for the generations that have yet to come, for a united Ireland.
Eleanor Roosevelt once said, "You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, I have lived through this horror, I can take the next thing that comes along, you must do the thing, you think you cannot do". We the people of Ireland, need to do what is right, we need to assure that PC Ronan Kerr did not die in vain, we need to take his vision of one peaceful, united Ireland, and work together to achieve this, we need to make his dreams our reality.
We need to stand together.
