A space for grief

When the conflict was at its most intense there was little space for grieving. Or so it seems now looking back on it. Obviously we did grieve. How could we avoid it? But grief has its own rhythm, its own cycle, which has to be honoured. I don't think we did any more than genuflect at these patterns. We certainly never took time out to observe them. We were too busy staying alive. And too angry?

When things were at their worst there were so many people dying. Every day people we knew were being shot or blown up. Others were being arrested, beaten up in the street, trailed off to the interrogation centres. How could you grieve properly in the middle of all that? Let your guard down and you would be next. Into the back of an armoured wagon and off to be pummelled and pulled this way and that before being deposited, a week later, black and blue at the gates of Long Kesh or the Crumlin Road Jail. Or worse. You could be dead.

Even in Palace Barracks where interrogations were conducted or, in its time, Castlereagh, death wasn't far away. The IRA was very active. Some of the interrogators knew people, their friends, who were killed. They didn't seem to be taking time to grieve either. They were probably too busy also. Or too angry. Sometimes, if the mood moved them they would produce photographs, reams of them, of their friends and shove them in your face. Sometimes the photographs were not of their friends. They were your friends. Comrades, neighbours, school friends, family.

Sometimes wakehouses were raided by squads of British soldiers. They tramped through rooms manhandling mourners and generally behaving in an abusive way. I witnessed scrums of them, young guys all, faces blackened with war paint, urinating in the garden of a house in Co Tyrone. That caused a lot of anger. Maybe it was meant too. Or maybe not. They probably didn't understand the importance of the wake. If people understood all these things, there would probably be fewer wars.

Siobhan O'Hanlon survived the war. She was through it all. And she survived. Until last week. Last week she died of cancer. She was 43 years old. I worked with her for 17 of those years. She was a big part of my life. I like to think I was some wee part of hers. Siobhan was a good person. She left a lot of good friends, especially her husband Pat and their son Cormac.

Siobhan's life was too short. But during that life she made a huge difference in the lives of many, many people. When Martin McGuinness led the first Sinn Féin delegation into Parliament Buildings to meet British government representatives in December 1994, Siobhan was there. When we were locked out of the negotiations in June 1996 and a small delegation entered Castle Buildings to be told why – Siobhan was there. When we held our first meeting with Tony Blair in October 1997, there was Siobhan. When we made the first Irish republican visit to Downing Street since the Treaty negotiations, Siobhan was there also. And when we spent eight long months negotiating the Good Friday Agreement, Siobhan was one of the stalwarts who made it happen.

She also dealt with many individual cases of people who came to my constituency office looking for help. Families wanting to adopt children from Belarus, others bereaved through suicide, victims of child abuse who needed counselling, young people who were self harming. People who fell through the cracks in the health services. To the unionists who rarely come into the office she was the voice on the phone who got things done. She also championed the causes of people who had grievances against republicans.

In 2001, on the 20th anniversary of the hunger strikes, she planned and organised a visit to Robben Island in South Africa. I unveiled a memorial to the H-Block hunger strikers in the prison yard where Mandela exercised for almost 30 years.

In October 2002 Siobhan was diagnosed with breast cancer. And for the next three and a half years she battled it every single day. Although a very private person, Siobhan planned and organised a conference on Breast Cancer in West Belfast. She set aside her natural reticence to speak and addressed the audience about her experience. It is an experience which cuts across gender and deals with the implications for a person, a family, trying to cope with a life-threatening illness through health systems that are often inadequate.

It was one of the most moving contributions I have ever heard. I have no shame in saying that I cried at the end of it. It was typical Siobhan. Honest and frank. That was three years ago.

Last week we buried Siobhan. On Good Friday. Since then we have been grieving. Now that the conflict is over there is space for that. Space for coming to terms with her absence. Space to go through the rhythm of loss, guilt, sadness, and happy memories. Space to honour the cycle and patterns of grief. And space to remember a good friend.