Whatever Gerry Adams’ past, peace takes precedence over justice
The faces of both Michael McConville and his older sister Helen are haunting because they are haunted. They are in middle age now. He is 53 and she is 57, and yet to see them interviewed about the 1972 abduction and murder of their mother Jean is to glimpse the children they were. Etched on Michael's face is the fear he must have felt as an 11-year-old boy when he witnessed an IRA gang, most wearing masks, barge into their home in the Divis flats in west Belfast and take away their mother. The masked men had to pull the woman from the arms of her 10 children, who were "crying and squealing". As McConville told the BBC, the fear has not left him; it's what prevents him naming his mother's killers now, even though he is convinced he knows who they are.
Published by: The Guardian