In Ireland

VAST

Terry Enright

Vale of tears: Deirdre Enright (centre) is comforted by her mother Margaret as the Gortnamona GAC jersey and club colours are removed from the coffin of husband Terry before it is carried into Holy Trinity Church

Andersonstown News, 17th January 1998

LOCAL HERO LAID TO REST

West Belfast was a community in mourning yesterday as loyalist murder victim Terry Enright was laid to rest in the heart of the area in which he was born and grew up.

And the mammoth turnout for his funeral - the biggest in West Belfast since the hunger strikes - told its own story of the community's respect for a local hero who had devoted his young life to helping others.

A giant of a man who was loved and admired by all who met him, his loss has been a grievous blow not only to his wife Deirdre and his parents, the widely-respected community workers Terry and Mary Enright, but to the entire community.

But the huge outpouring of community sympathy for the Enright family in the wake of the weekend loyalist murder had helped his loved ones shoulder their loss, Terry Enright snr. has said. "It's very much appreciated. We're grateful for the support of all our friends and the fact that so many people have called to Terry's house to pay their respects is a testimony to his life, the people he touched and the type of person he was,"

He added: "He was just a child but he packed more into 28 years of living than most people do into 70 or 80 years. I'm proud of him and his mother and brothers and his wife are really proud of him."

Throughout the week, tributes to the dead man flowed in from all sections of society. Geraldine McAteer, manager of the Upper Springfield Development Trust, where Terry worked as a youth leader, praised his commitment to children on the margins. "Terry was able to take kids out of themselves," she said. "He was a person who shared a lot."

Andersonstown News, 17th January 1998

Terry Enright's colleague in community work, Geraldine McAteer, pays tribute to an unforgettable young man

'We are all very numb, very angry, and very hurt at Terry's death. Terry had his own unique approach, his own unique personality.

He was an accomplished athlete, a very confident person and he made us very confident in him. He was a big guy because he trained a lot and was an athlete and sportsman. But more than that, he was a very happy person: always smiling, raving about his wife and kids.

When we set up the youth programme we had every confidence in him. He was a very level-headed young man and had a special empathy with kids who felt they were marginalised. He understood the young people of West Belfast and their problems because he was more than just an outdoor pursuits instructor. We were looking for someone extra special - someone who had all the qualifications but who also had counselling skills.

Terry was able to take kids out of themselves - those young people who were going through all the problems that teenagers go through. He was a person who shared a lot, he did not shy away from kids who had problems, he did not judge them, but reached out to them. He didn't just work with the happy-go-lucky kids in youth clubs but made a point of picking out the children who were experiencing severe difficulties, and I think he did a brilliant job of it.

He didn't put his hand across the divide in a wishy washy way; he knew what the problems were, the hard realities on the ground, and he tackled the job with realism.

I feel very angry also. When I saw Terry bruised and battered in his coffin, I felt so angry that such a young life full of hope, the life of a man who gave so much to everybody else, the life of a loving father, husband, son and brother should be taken in such an obscene way.

Hearts are broken here, but young people are also asking questions, they are asking, why should we be beaten by people like the LVF? We have to keep going and hopefully one day these people will be brought to justice.

Terry lived on a day to day basis for a better society here, trying to construct a decent society and the best way to help our young peope is to carry on Terry's work. l haven't seen a wake like Terry's since that of Bobby Sands. The number of young people who filed past the coffin - in through the front door and out through the back - was incredible.

What is heartbreaking is that it is like another generation who is suffering. I felt Terry belonged to the new generation - he was part and parcel of the lives of those kids he was nurturing, giving a sense of purpose to and in turn they really took him to their hearts.

There were children there from eight years old up to 20- and 30-year-old adults, all identifying with him - people who knew him through sport and through the youth work he did.

I have to say that I am concerned about our own young staff who I think will need counselling. In fact, I think there is a real need for grief counselling in this whole area today.

"Inflammatory words have fomented the bitterness": Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams, an uncle of Terry Enright's wife Deirdre, walk with parents Mary and Terry Enright (foreground) as the funeral cortege makes its way to Holy Trinity Church

Andersonstown News, 17th January 1998

A COMMUNITY IN MOURNING

Andersonstown News, 17th January 1998

Sweeping up the heart

Straight-talking by Mairtin O'Muilleoir

The gathering up of memories at the home of Deirdre Enright this week was indeed, as the poet Emily Dickinson observed, a solemn industry for all those who made the heart-breaking journey to pay their last respects to Terry Óg. But memories of Terry which cause such pain in their recalling will also help soothe the wounded hearts of his family and friends. The poet speaks where we can find no words: The bustle in a house/ the morning after death/is solemnest of industries/enacted upon earth-/The sweeping up the heart/and putting love away/we shall not want to use again/until eternity. He was not of my generation nor had our paths crossed but rarely since I shared a camp site with his family and a thousand others in West Belfast by the sea in Co Down. Then he was but a bronzed imp though there was no hiding the vitality and the love-of-life which combined, in later life, with his own strength of character to make him someone who you could point to and say, that's how I want my kids to grow up. Proud, witty, loving, teak-tough on the playing field, soft with the kids on the outdoor pursuits schemes, and handsome. How, of course, could it be otherwise when he was the son of Terry and Mary, two pillars of our community who had a vision of a new tomorrow for all our children and who set out to do something about it by giving and giving and giving...and then some. Perhaps in the last four days the outpouring of community support they have seen will pay them back one thousandth of what West Belfast owes them for the years of service - and for giving us Terry Óg, even if just for 28 brief years. There is no age when it can be bearable for parents to bury their son, for a young wife to bury her husband, but can any time in life be more grievous than that period at the end of the twenties when manhood takes hold, the building up of the family begins and, sure, the advice of the old pair doesn't seem that wide of the mark after all? But it was also because young Terry was in the prime of his life that his death has brought out in our community such resolve and conviction - especially among his contemporaries. It's as if they, by their vigils and their writings, by their banners and their turnout at his funeral, are saying: we're not going back and neither bullets nor the pronouncements of politicians who tell us we won't have our freedom in their lifetime will force us back. Terry Enright jnr. may not have seen a United Ireland in his lifetime but his peers will. There were no flags at half-mast for Terry Enright at Government Buildings in Dublin, no books of condolences in the Mansion House, no city centre peace rally in Belfast, no peace train to Central Station and no demands by unionist MPs for "a security crackdown" or the resignation of the Secretary of State. But then Terry Enright was just a relative of Gerry Adams, as the media was at pains to point out. Isn't that the perfect metaphor for dispensable Catholics as the unionists resort to their age-old tactic of bullet on the streets, bluster at the Talks. If so, it's a relationship we would all be proud to boast of. They can talk all they want about resurrecting Stormont on the hill but neither we nor our elected representatives are going to sign up for anything less than a process the beauties of Belfast's hills. But when I looked up on Sunday, I thought too of young Terry and wondered what if the Hatchet Field was to be the memorial garden to all our war dead, from Peter Ward to Terry Enright and, sadly, those who will be targeted in the days to come. It would be our equivalent of Washington's striking black marble Vietnam Memorial, simple but powerful, screaming yet silent. Let Sir Ken Bloomfield do his duty by the British Prime Minister who appointed him and build his memorial stone. We will show it the utmost respect. But in the meantime, above the city on the slopes of the Black Mountain, looking down on us to will us on as we look up at it to gain the strength our memories bring us, will be our special place where we can silently pay tribute to all the Terry Enrights. A place for the solemnest of industries.