The Troubles: 'Dad was murdered, now I help others face trauma'

About 3,600 people were killed and 40,000 were injured in the Troubles, while countless others were bereaved.

Damien McNally was only a few months old when his father was shot dead in a random sectarian attack by loyalists outside a bookmakers in north Belfast’s Ardoyne area in 1976.

He said: "My dad was 26 years old when he died and when I turned that age, it felt really strange and you have an increased sense of your own morality.

“You almost feel like half of you isn’t there and you realise how much you miss him not being there when you’re getting married or having your first child."

He added: “Whatever way I’d been affected by what’s happened to me, I didn’t want to pass that on to my own children.”

Damien now works with Wave Trauma Centre and lectures at Queen’s University on transgenerational trauma.

Video journalist: Niall McCracken

(Footage filmed before lockdown.)