NEARLY 20 years ago, my sister Nodlaig spent her summer at the Donegal Gaeltacht.
She had a whale of a time, lapping up the excitement of being away from home for the first time, speaking Irish wall to wall, sneaking out of the house at night with her friends to meet equally nervous teenage boys.
Some of the girls even got a k
iss, or 'a snog' as they used to describe it in those innocent days. One of those teenage boys was a young man from Creggan called Peadar Heffron.
On Tuesday past in the Royal Victoria Hospital, after the surgeons had consulted with his devastated parents Frank and Eithne, Peadar had his right leg amputated at the hip.
The previous Friday, as he left home outside Randalstown at half six in the morning, an under car booby trap went off beneath his seat, leaving his body a disgusting mess. He was breathing and conscious when the paramedics arrived, but hasn't been awake since. His pelvic area was destroyed by the bomb. The flesh and skin from his ruined right leg has been used to help rebuild his mid section. He has been oblivious as he has see-sawed between life and death throughout the week.
Since he was a child, he played Gaelic football for Creggan Kickhams. When he left school, he worked in the Civil Service, first in the Department of Education and Learning, later as an administrative officer with the Social Security Agency.
When the Good Friday Agreement was made, it was a fundamental part of the negotiations that a new police force be created. This was duly done. I am not a fan of police, but that's just me. I am simply not a fan of authority, whether it's the NYPD or the Gardai.
When the PSNI was formed, I remember the BBC sent a camera crew to Crossmaglen to do a vox pop. They interviewed Paddy Short, unofficial Mayor of Crossmaglen, and father of the county footballers Aidan and Oliver. The lady reporter asked him the following question.
"Now that there is a new police force, do you think that young people from Crossmaglen might be inclined to join?" "No" said Paddy. "Why not?" she asked. "Well" said Paddy, "we're just not built that way around here." In his inimitable way, Paddy was summing up an entirely legitimate anti-authoritarian philosophy.
The majority of people are like this. It is why we dislike TV Licence men or Traffic Wardens.
A few years ago, St Brigid's played the PSNI team. We were the first club team to do so. Graffiti went up in the city centre: "Shame on you Joe. Shame on St Brigid's." A few weeks afterwards I was stopped on the street by a provisional. " You're a disgrace " he said" playing those boys. "You handed over your guns to them" I said, "we played them in a football match."
The whole point of the new settlement has been to create a civilised society by agreement. The PSNI is one of the fruits of that agreement.
Damien Tucker was one of the founder members of their Gaelic football team. He played for Tullylish (James McCartan's club) as a goalie and later full forward. When he joined the RUC, he could no longer play the game he loved. When we played the PSNI team, we chatted afterwards over a few pints about the massive changes in society. I referred to my lunches up at Stormont with my father, Sinn Fein members strolling through the palatial hall calling out " Joe a chara," comfortable as Tiger Woods on the 18th.
He recalled the massive wrench it was when he joined the RUC. On his first day when he went into the canteen, the first thing he saw was a large portrait of the Queen, flanked by Union flags. He says he had to take a deep breath, before picking his sandwich.
With the advent of the PSNI all of this changed utterly. The portrait and the flags are gone. If anyone put one up now they would be sacked. The Politicians on the green side (doesn't it sound so antiquated?) encouraged people to join. They did.
One of these was Peadar Heffron. He joined the PSNI soon after its formation, coming in with the second tranche of new recruits. A PSNI Gaelic football team was established and Peadar soon became the captain.
His family and extended family are Irish to the bone, politically, socially and culturally. His uncle Oliver Kearney (father of Sinn Fein's Director of Information, Declan) was a truly great Irishman, responsible for promoting the McBride anti-discrimination principles throughout Irish America and lobbying ceaselessly for an end to discrimination in the Northern Ireland workplace.
In my parent's home, pride of place in the good room is given to a large framed photograph of Oliver and his beloved wife Brigid. They must be turning in their graves today.
I heard one of the Dissident people saying recently that their aim was to "get rid of British Rule". What a load of twaddle. Self determination is alive and well in the North. In a few months time when justice and policing are devolved, there will be no British rule at all. The financial negotiations to cut the umbilical cord are at an advanced stage. Give it a few years and we will have as much a connection to Britain as Australia.
Recently, Peadar addressed a policing board meeting in Derry 'as Gaeilge'. I thought this is what we all wanted, a police force where people could be what they were and freely express themselves without discrimination. On the one hand, we have a lad professing the Gaelic ideal openly, through the language and the games. On the other, we have a man crawling under a car in the dead of night to try to kill him. Which society is best? Who is the better Irishman?
In Eric Bogle's great anti war song "Waltzing Matilda", the young hero was a free-rover who travelled the outback. When the war came, he fought at Suvla Bay against the Turks and was hit by a mortar. When he woke up in his hospital bed, he "looked at the place where my legs used to be/And thank Christ there was no one there waiting for me/ To grieve, to mourn and to pity."
When this young rover wakes up, he will be devastated at the loss of his leg. But he will be surrounded by his family, his wife Fiona and his many friends. When we played them, he was conspicuous by the ferocity of his play, all heart and soul. I spoke this week to the chairman of the PSNI club and he said that he would not be surprised if he becomes the first Gaelic footballer to take the field with a prosthetic. I fervently pray for that day.
