Family remember Derry teenager Kathleen Feeney on 50th anniversary of her death

Kathleen was from the Bogside area of Derry and was buying sweets on her way to Long Tower Youth Club when she was shot by an IRA gunman, who was aiming at British Army troops on November 14, 1973. For years, the IRA denied any involvement in the killing but, in 2005, the IRA issued a public statement in the ‘Journal’, taking accountability for the St Cecilia’s pupil’s death.

Kathleen’s sister, Mary Feeney-Morrison remembers her sister as someone who was ‘full of fun’. She said: “Kathleen enjoyed the craic and was very funny and witty, even at a young age. She enjoyed music, as we all did in the 70s, and loved going to the youth club for discos and dances. We had a good group of friends who all hung around together and we went to the club with. My brother Danny, the oldest boy, was a youth leader in the club and he would have had all the young ones off the streets because of the troubles. We would have been in the Lurch Hall or Nan Street or the Wolf Tone Hall, depending on where it was on. You went to the club and met everybody. There was only a year between me and Kathleen so we were very close.

“I don’t have a lot of memories of after Kathleen’s death but I do remember a lot about the time leading up to it. It was Princess Anne's wedding day, she was marrying Mark Phillips and I was bursting to see what kind of dress she was wearing. I was all into it and Kathleen shouted to ask what crap I was watching – she was a wee bit more militant than I was – and I told her I just wanted to see what the dress was like. At eight o'clock, we had arranged to go to the club so I went to get my friend Patricia who was working over in the fish shop, McCann's, that her granny owned. I had arranged to get her, and Kathleen was getting the other ones and we were all meeting up in the club.

"Patricia had just finished and then her uncle, Tommy, comes in and says there's something wrong over at Lizzie's shop. When we were heading over, everybody was kind of looking at me and there was a crowd gathered around. My cousin had come out of the crowd and started shouting, ‘get her away, get her away’ and I was going, ‘what's wrong with you?’ because he was pushing me. I didn't realise at this stage what had happened. My brother Danny lived nearby so I went to his house and I was handed Kathleen’s watch and the watch was smashed at 20 past eight, that was when she fell.

"I was holding the watch as we went into Danny’s house and it was like pandemonium. I still had no idea what was happening until someone phoned later on to say she'd passed away. I didn’t know where I was going or what I was doing then."

Mary and Kathleen’s parents, Harry and Kathleen Feeney passed away in 1980 and 2001 respectively and, after their death, the family decided to find out the truth about their sister’s death.

“We had asked the IRA to investigate the murder, because we had known all along that it was them that done it, but nobody owned up to it,” Mary continued. “We wrote to Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness to get it investigated. They come back to us and said that there would be an apology in the Journal.

"I was amazed by the amount of media attention that was given to us at the time, because it was unprecedented that the IRA apologised for anything. I had that much hatred for them because they didn't admit it. I was carrying this hurt with me all the time. Playwright Jo Egan did ‘The Crack in Everything’, where she looked at the lives of six children who were killed in the troubles, which was a hard thing to do for her, and that was my turning point then when I saw the show. That was when I turned around and realised how angry I was. My daughter Sarah played me in the play and it was a healing process for me, because I was able to say what was happening but at the same time, I was able to see that I was only hurting myself. In the play, when my brother Danny had forgiven the gunman and I ask him, how do you forgive him? He killed our Kathleen and he’s getting away with it’, I had that bitterness in me. But I was a bit older then and I realised that I just had to let it go. I had to think of myself and my family and that’s when the forgiveness came in, that was a real turning point for me.”

Mary said the past few days have been “very emotional” for the family. “Every year, we go down to the memorial and put flowers there, then go up to the cemetery and put flowers there and we all sit together. This year we had a Mass up in Termonbacca and I was overwhelmed with the turnout of people. St Cecilia’s choir came and they played a few songs, they sang Morning Has Broken and Amazing Grace, which the choir sang 50 years ago at Kathleen’s funeral. The singing was gorgeous and it was a really beautiful night, it was great to see all of our friends from years ago as well. It was a lovely tribute for Kathleen.”