Damien Walsh was the third of five children and the first boy born into the Walsh family who lived in Belfast. He was very active in the local youth club where he’d started training as a youth leader. He was a DJ for many discos within the club and participated in much of the outdoor pursuit programmes.
From an early age Damien loved to go out working. One of his first jobs was helping the milkman on his morning rounds. Then, at the age of 16, he joined the government Youth Training Scheme. On Damien’s first YTS job he was placed here at the Dairy Farm shopping centre as a trainee coalman. He loved the job and didn’t mind the long hours, hard work or getting his hands dirty.
On Thursday 25th march 1993, Damien and another workmate were working late. At 11 minutes past eight two UFF gunmen entered the premises. They opened fire and Damien was hit six times in the back in the lungs, heart, kidney and liver. A piece of the green jacket he was wearing was embedded with one of the bullets in his liver.
Fortunately his workmate survived having sustained bullet wounds to his legs. Damien was then taken to the City hospital where the casualty doctor opened his chest to manipulate his heart into functioning again obviously to no avail. Damien actually died about one hour after the shooting.
No one has ever been charged or made accountable for Damien’s murder or any other events connected with it.
This year on the fifth anniversary of his death some relatives and friends decided that something positive should come out of such an awful tragedy. Thus, the Damien Walsh Group was formed. The mainstay of our Group is that no one else should end up like Damien and no other family should have to go through the pain that his family have gone through. So in essence even though it’s named after Damien it’s more to do with all the survivors.
OK, so what’s the positive contribution that our Group intends making?
Well, we believe that the most fitting memorial to all of the victims of this conflict will be a peaceful outcome brought about through dialogue, understanding and the promotion of the truth. In the near future we’ll be organising more talks, seminars and discussion groups aimed at the goal of resolving the current conflict. Because we believe that this conflict is not over. The recent murders of three children in their beds proves that. We want to try to widen the discussion taking place and to bring into that discussion the ordinary men and women whose lives are affected by what’s going on around them.
So the kick –start the work of the Group we thought it would be appropriate to have the Damien Walsh Memorial Lecture. The theme of this years lecture is the media coverage of the conflict with a particular emphasis on the press. And we are delighted to have Robin Livingstone of the Andersonstown News, Roy Greenslade of the Guardian and Anne Cadwalleder of Independent Network News. With Anne in the chair.
If anyone is interested in helping out you are more than welcome to get in touch with us. You’ll find the contact details at the back of the wee leaflet. You may have noticed on the leaflet that the next forthcoming event is the unveiling of a memorial plaque in remembrance of Damien and all of the other victims from the area. This is due to take place on the Saturday 19th of September here in the Diary Farm. And we are expecting a fairly senior member of the Irish Government to do the honours.
Could I finish by saying that Damien’s Mother told me that see had had a dream recently. And the dream was actually about this lecture. And Marian said that in it she had been helping to get people seated and so on and then she noticed that she was holding a baby. When she looked down she saw that it was Damien. She then said to everyone that Damien’s back; that you can all go home, we don’t need to have a lecture. Well could I just say to Marian that Damien is back because everyone in this room remembers him and we’re not going to let him fade away.
Just like we’re not going to let the memory of the other victims' fade.