Derry Journal Review of The Year 2024: August - A month of remembrance and loss
August was a month of great loss and of remembering those gone before us.
Relatives said that newly refurbished memorial to those killed in the 1972 Claudy bombing will help ensure their loved ones are remembered and their legacy preserved well into the future.
Families and survivors of the IRA bombings, which claimed the lives of nine people and left many more wounded, were speaking as they gathered in the village to mark the 52nd anniversary of the atrocity and to rededicate the monument in Claudy.
The brother of a child killed in the Claudy bombing also said it is a disgrace that the families are still being denied access to information relating to the deadly attacks 52 years on.
Mark Eakin’s nine-year-old sister Kathryn was the youngest of the nine people killed following the IRA bomb explosions in the centre of the village on July 31, 1972.
Tributes were also paid to the Derry City Treble-winning manager Jim McLaughlin, who sadly passed away at the age of 83.
Derry City Football Club led the condolences, stating that the local football community was ‘deeply saddened’ to learn of Mr. McLaughlin’s passing and describing him as one of the most successful managers in Irish football history.
Nell McCafferty was described as a ‘mould breaker’ and feminist icon following her death in a nursing home in Donegal.
Tributes poured in for the award-winning journalist and co-founder of the Irish Women's Liberation Movement. And there was sadness as cousins Kian Dawson-Kirk and Eoghan Dawson tragically lost their lives in a road traffic collision in Inishowen.