Hasnain says:

Her argument today at the ICJ was sobering (due to the nature of the genocide) and inspirational (seeing the moral clarity with which people were fighting for human rights). Reading this interview on the other hand was just inspirational - I wish more people took action like this.

“Something that she says had a big impact on her life was discovering the story of Majella O’Hare, a young girl of 12 from County Armagh who was shot in the back and killed by a British soldier in 1976.

Ms Ní Ghrálaigh says: “I was 12 years old myself when I found a pamphlet about Majella O’Hare in one of my mother’s bookcases. I saw the picture of the young girl on the front, and saw her age, and I read it from cover to cover. I read about how she died in the arms of her father after he heard the shot and went running to her. I think it was her age, the fact that nobody had been held accountable, and the circumstances of the killing – that she had been shot as she walked along a country road with a group of other children, going to Confession at the local chapel – that particularly outraged my convent schoolgirl sensibilities at the time.”

Ms Ní Ghrálaigh went to her mother in tears and asked how such a terrible thing could be allowed to happen. Her mother’s response to her young daughter was: “Do something about it”. Ms Ní Ghrálaigh says: “I often think about my mother’s response. Her words struck a very profound chord. And I’ve hung on to that pamphlet over all these years. It’s now framed above my work desk as a reminder of what brought me here.””

Posted on 2024-01-11T16:48:20+0000