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Brexiteers, backstops, and the bloody Irish border

How casually the Brexiteers dismiss the issues around the Irish border and the peace process. But for many, they can never be forgotten.

By Mark Kernan
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Gillespie murder scene 1.jpg
Gillespie murder scene 1.jpg

Image: The scene of the Coshquin bombing, 1990. Credit: Pacemaker Press International, all rights reserved.

The bomb went off in the early morning, about 4 or 5 am. In Coshquin, just outside Derry – about six miles away from where I grew up in Donegal in the Irish Republic.

I remember it as a booming thud. I didn’t think much of it - I’d heard bombs before. I tried to get back to sleep. Back in October 1990, it was no big deal. There was no shortage of bombs in Derry and around the border throughout the 70s and 80s. Probably a controlled explosion by the British army, I thought, or even a dummy run up in the hills on the Donegal side of the border by the Provos.

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Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0