Good Friday Agreement: 'My dad was murdered shortly before peace deal'

Terry Enright - pictured with his daughters Aoife (left) and Ciara - was one of the last people murdered before the 1998 peace deal

The daughter of a man who was murdered in the weeks before the Good Friday Agreement has spoken for the first time about living with the trauma of his death.

Terry Enright, a father of two, was shot dead by loyalist paramilitaries at his place of work in January 1998.

He was a well-known cross-community youth worker from west Belfast.

His murder, which happened as talks were taking place to reach the peace deal, sent shockwaves across the city.

His daughter Ciara, who was five years old at the time, has told BBC Radio Ulster's Evening Extra programme that his death still affects her 25 years on.

'He didn't come home'

Ciara said her dad was a 'big friendly giant'

"How do you get over something so traumatic that you weren't expecting?" she said.

"It's not like my dad was sick. He went out to work one night and didn't come home."

The 30-year-old said she had almost completely blocked out the ages of five to six and there were a lot of gaps in her memory.

"I only learnt to tell the time later in life because there was a lot of things I blocked out," she said.

Ciara has also struggled with mental ill health over the years.

"When I talk to my mummy about it she says it's because I haven't really dealt with what happened to me," said Ciara.

"It really affects your character, who are you are, how you are as a person, your personality and in relationships and friendships and it does have a huge impact and you don't realise it until you are older."

Trauma passing through generations

I first met Ciara in 2015 while on holiday in Thailand.

It was one of those moments where you hear a Belfast accent and naturally get talking.

What I did not know was that we were linked by our fathers.

My dad David Morgan had reported on the death of her dad Terry in 1998 while working for the BBC.

It was not until I was going through the archives of my dad's work as part of a documentary I was making that I realised the connection.

He died in 2016 after a battle with addiction, brought about by his post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that was attributed to what he saw during his time reporting on the Troubles.

I know his trauma affects me. I did not see what he witnessed first hand but I witnessed the effect on him.

Ciara - pictured with her mother Deirdre in their home in 1998 - says she has blocked her early years from her memory

The idea of transgenerational trauma has been the subject of some studies and it is evident in a post-conflict society.

Research has suggested that the children of people who have experienced trauma can themselves experience similar feelings or coping mechanisms, whether they know the details of the trauma or not.

It is something I wanted to explore with Ciara ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.

She agreed that watching how the adults in her life coped with the trauma of her father's murder had an effect on her too.

"Not only did I have to deal with that at the age of five, but my mummy had to deal with that and his mummy and his brothers," she said.

"It is the inter-generational thing. It does stem from your parents and your grandparents and it does have an impact on us, definitely."

'Hopefully we can do his work'

Ciara knows now that her dad's murder was one of the pivotal moments in the run-up to the Good Friday Agreement as it may have focused minds.

I asked if it gave her any comfort that what happened to her dad may have changed what could have happened to others had there been no peace deal.

"I've never really thought about it like that until you've said that, but yeah definitely," said Ciara.

"Obviously around that time, that period, there was a couple of murders and had they not happened we probably wouldn't have had the Good Friday Agreement."

Recalling her father, Ciara said he was a "big friendly giant" who was "always up for the craic".

Most of Terry's cross-community work was with young people in west Belfast.

Ciara and her sister are carrying on that work. Both of them have jobs working with children.

"It's something that has positively impacted us and hopefully we can give back and do the work he did and impact other peoples' lives," she said.

"I want his memory to live on."