Church 'packed' for service in memory of victims of loyalist and republican terrorism in North West
Newbuildings Methodist Church in Co Londonderry was filled to capacity today for a remembrance service for victims and survivors of republican and loyalist terrorism.
The Co Londonderry event was SEFF’s 3rd Annual Service of Remembrance for the North West Region.
SEFF Director Kenny Donaldon said there was "a beautiful contribution” from Newbuildings Primary School who sang a number of pieces and also read prayers.
He said the service was “a wonderful representation of remembrance, devotion and love” with Deacon Marlene Skuce delivering “a powerful address” on loss and injustice but also hope and renewal.
Lessons were read by Gillian McElholm, whose father Michael McGinley was murdered by the UDA/UFF in Londonderry in 1972, and Jennifer Millar, whose father Charles McNaul was murdered by The IRA in the city.
Prayers read by SEFF’s North West-based staff, Michael McKeegan, son of L/Cpl John McKeegan who was murdered by the IRA, and Lara Burns, daughter of Robert Burns who was murdered by The IPLO.
Speaking about the ethos of SEFF, he said the someone’s religion or politics “is not the fundamental division” bur rather “where they stand on the issue of violence”.
Eight Memorial Quilts remembering approximately 600 victims were on display.
Lorraine Sadler delivered a tribute to her sister Linda Baggley and father William Baggley, both reserve RUC Constables shot by the IRA within 100m of each other in Londonderry.
Linda, aged 19, died in 1976. Her father William, 43 and a father of three was killed two years earlier.
Lorraine said her father served in the Royal Navy, writing letters from all the countries he visited.
He was “a gentleman, a great dad to us and a loving husband to my mum”.
"The sadness and heartache of losing my dad was just so hard to bear," she said. "My brother Graham was only five, he didn’t understand what was happening to our family.
"I remember so clearly my mother coming into our bedroom early that morning to break the news to us that our dad had been murdered.
"My mum was heartbroken at the loss of my father and being left a young widow to raise three children. We didn’t know what to do to help her, how to comfort her and wondered would our lives ever be the same again.
"As a family our world was turned upside down, little did we know two years later tragedy would strike our family again."
She visited her sister in the Royal Victoria Hospital after she was shot.
"Nurses told us to keep talking to her and I told her a few funny stories about Graham. Linda and Graham were very close. It was then we noticed a tear rolling down her cheek. This one tear gave my mother so much hope that Linda was going to be okay. Sadly not the case.”
An IRA bomb scare prevented her mother from seeing Linda in her final moments.
After her death their house became “so empty, there was no laughter just darkness and sadness”.
They got through with the love of aunts and uncles and Glendermott Parish Church.
Lorraine offered “our eternal and grateful thanks for the support, understanding and compassion shown to us by the RUC” after the murders.
"Losing a sister like her leaves an ache inside us, but her memory leaves a gift we’ll treasure forever. This tribute is for the sister who became our pride and joy, forever loved, forever missed and never forgotten.”