Jean McConville ‘fighting fund’ surpasses £10k target

Helen McKendry said she “lost everything” when her widowed mother was abducted from their home in west Belfast in 1972, murdered and secretly buried.

Husband Seamus McKendry told the News Letter they are pursuing Sinn Fein through the civil courts as they believe Sinn Fein acted as “the political wing” of the IRA during the Troubles.

The www.gofundme.com appeal page had been quietly set up in late January and attracted pledges of just a few hundred pounds from a small number of contributors by Sunday.

However, once the appeal was highlighted in the media the initial £10,000 target was reached in less than 24 hours.

On Monday morning (January 7) the amount pledged had exceeded £11,000.

Mr McKendry said that had his wife not been so badly affected by her mum’s disappearance she would have been able to pursue her dream career as a midwife, potentially earning more than £1 million during those lost years.

He also said that speaking out about the murder has cost his family dear over the years in many other ways.

“We’ve had all the threats, the kids were beaten up, the car was wrecked. I’m sure I’ll get a bit of animosity about this but I don’t care,” he said.

No one has ever been convicted in connection with Mrs McConville’s disappearance, however, one man was in 2019 acquitted of soliciting the murder when the main source of evidence – contained within the Boston College tapes – was deemed inadmissible by the court.

Sinn Fein has not yet responded to a request for comment.

READ: Daughter of IRA victim Jean McConville to sue Sinn Fein

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