I was thrilled to have the opportunity to meet with this extraordinary man again in Athy last night. Stephen Travers played bass guitar with the Miami Showband and survived the bomb that killed 3 of his friends. Stephen was then shot and left for dead in a ditch. He now works tirelessly for truth and provides a voice to other victims and survivors of the ‘Troubles’. He spoke about how we must look back in order to go forward and campaigns to make Irish history a core subject in our schools. The perpetrators and the powers that be who are responsible for the atrocities inflicted on innocent people, including the horrific abuse of mothers and children all over Ireland, want us to forget. I cannot tell you the number of times I’ve heard phrases like ‘it’s in the past,leave it in the past’ and while I hear what people are saying it’s simply wrong. We must never forget… we imply apathy to the suffering of so many if we do that. For people to heal they need to be heard and this cannot happen if we, as a society choose to close our ears and to not remember their pain. The harm that comes with this is, not only do we disregard the suffering of our people and sacrifice the recovery and dignity of all the survivors, we are handing down these traumas to our children and future generations. It is this inter generational harm that needs to be interrupted in order for us all to recover and reconcile and this healing just cannot happen if we refuse to acknowledge the truth.💜
The book of the Miami Showband Massacre is available on all platforms and an amazing documentary with the same title is on Netflix.
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