Bomb survivor and ex-IRA man jailed for attack held 'moving' deathbed talk, Belfast Telegraph June 7th, 2023

'BRAVE' VICTIMS' ACTIVIST GILMOUR REACHED OUT TO SF'S MCGLINCHEY

By GARRETT HARGAN

A Sinn Fein councillor who was jailed for his role in a car bomb that claimed six lives has spoken of a “very moving” deathbed conversation he had with a survivor of the atrocity. The extraordinary encounter at Antrim Area Hospital between former IRA man Sean McGlinchey and victims' campaigner David Gilmour was first reported by the Northern Constitution.

Councillor McGlinchey was convicted of the 1973 Coleraine bombings and served 18 years in prison. Among 39 others seriously injured was Mr Gilmour's father, who was blown the entire length of the shop he had entered moments before.

David miraculously escaped unscathed having been left in the car outside. Mr Gilmour died at the age of 59 on August 30, 2022, at the Macmillan Unit of Antrim Area Hospital. For almost a year nothing was known about the conversation between the two men.

Mr Gilmour had previously been critical of the councillor for what he termed “legitimising the rewriting of a terrorist past”. They were familiar with each other for many years and had passed each other on countless occasions without saying a word.

“He made a phone call to the Sinn Fein office and asked if I'd ring him. That's how it came about,” Mr McGlinchey said of the hospital visit. “He was a braver man than me. I met David over the years, many a time at the counts. “He was Gregory Campbell's personal assistant for years. He worked at the DUP offices and would've been at the counts.

“Me and David would have walked by each other and never spoke. We never had a bad word to [say to] each other, but we never spoke.

“And, as I say, it was a very moving, personal conversation we had. He said he didn't think I'd come, but we spoke for about an hour.

“I don't want to go into the detail of it, because it was private.

“But what I took away from it, on a personal level, was I left David in that room and turned. He said, 'You'll visit me again?', and I said, 'Certainly, David. I look forward to that'.

“I told him I would leave it a couple of weeks and call back up again, but unfortunately he didn't survive that long.”

It was an invaluable conversation for Mr McGlinchey, who explained: “That's the way it should be. We should try to understand each other.

“There are people on both sides — and that's just human nature — who will never take that extra step we really have to make.”

Following his release from prison, Mr McGlinchey “wanted to show republicans and young people that there is another way we can achieve our objectives”.

It is not the first time Mr McGlinchey has interacted with victims of the bombing. In 2011, when serving as Mayor of Limavady, he met Jean Jefferson, who lost a relative in the Coleraine bombings. Ms Jefferson's aunt was killed and her father severely disfigured in the Railway Road blast.

Following their meeting, the pair have remained “very good friends”. Mr McGlinchey recalled: “She was a very understanding person and a very personal and private conversation was had. It helped me on the way to working with victims, to help them understand where we were then, in the early 1970s, compared to now.

“There are no winners in this conflict. We all have to move on. We are in a better place now and hopefully we can still make the changes to show people we can work and live together.

“We all have to accept that nobody got it right.

“As republicans, there are a lot of things that we regret deeply, in terms of innocent victims.

“But we can't bring that back.

“We have to make sure there are no more Coleraine bombings; there are no more Omagh bombings; there are no more shootings like that of Detective John Caldwell.

“Armed conflict, as far as I'm concerned, is over. We have to move on — and the only way we do that is through outreach to understand where republican families were, and loyalists too.”

Mr McGlinchey has previously apologised to his victims' families and said he had no issue with a memorial for victims.

Mr McGlinchey was a teenager when he joined the IRA. When asked his reasons for doing so, he said: “I'm not going to try to justify my reasons for joining the IRA, or my three brothers', or any young man or woman's, because this is about innocent victims.”

While in prison with his three brothers, Mr McGlinchey's mother “prayed for everybody”. He said some of their “best neighbours” are from a Protestant background.

On commemorations on both sides, he said people should remember their dead with “pride and dignity”.

He concluded: “Dignity is the word. We'll do it with dignity. People shouldn't have any fear of it.”