Survivor’s story highlights needs of NI’s victims

Survivor’s story highlights needs of NI’s victims

11 June 2014

HOW many Colm Smyths are out there? Apart from the briefest of mentions at the time of the Loughinisland massacre, he was due to become just another footnote in our troubled history. Until now.

The marketing manager and father of two had been quietly going about a ‘normal’ life on the other side of the country for many years. But there was something that wasn’t going away.

We have his wife to thank for encouraging him shortly after the UVF shooting at the Heights Bar to write down his memories. Although they are only surfacing into publication now, in time for the 20th anniversary, there is a vivid immediacy about his account.

We are drawn back into the tiny smoke-filled bar of good-humoured, decent men celebrating Ireland’s unexpected World Cup success as if it were yesterday.

And even though we know what happens next, we are still shocked. We feel Colm’s gut-wrenching pain in the hospital, wince at his fragile state as the world’s media descended, and fear with him that the gun men could come back.

The memories of that dreadful night would likely have faded had he put pen to paper only recently. But the result is a short book designed to mark the 20th anniversary.

It is a brave and harrowing warts and all account from someone who is essentially a quiet family man. While a cathartic process for himself, he hopes primarily it will raise awareness of what the people of Loughinisland went through and help other survivors out there.

Some will want to let sleeping dogs lie, but others may want to open that book. And Colm wants a forum of some kind for people to be able to share their stories if they want to do so.

His story certainly comes at a topical time.

Attention in 1994 naturally focused on the six men who lost their lives at The Heights Bar and their devastated families, as it would do in other such atrocities. But there have been movements in recent years to recognise the injured Troubles victims, the survivors, with estimates of up to 100,000 having been affected.

Colm is not politically motivated himself, but among the groups lobbying Stormont and Westminster in recent years have been the WAVE Trauma Centre and their ‘Recognition for All’ campaign. Just last month the Northern Ireland Victims Commissioner Kathryn Stone also called for pensions for those severely injured during the Troubles to be set up immediately.

At the same time, the recent suspension of the Historical Enquiries Team, set up to review thousands of unsolved cases, and controversial calls for a line to be drawn under pre-Good Friday Agreement investigations, have further muddied the waters.

The truth is we are unaware of just how many people there are doing their best to get on in with life in Northern Ireland, while battling the demons of the past. The problem with the status quo is that mechanisms for dealing with our history are at best fragmented. Those who have been injured have little power when it comes to finding out what happened to them, and for those who want to tell their story there is no official way of doing so.

Those like Colm Smyth, who have had strong family support around them, have stumbled on, but there will be those less fortunate.

Time to spare a thought for all the men who were in The Heights bar in Loughinisland on June 18, 1994 and the many thousands like them across Northern Ireland.