Paul Whitters' mother Helen will treasure new book 'Paul Whitters: A generous spirit’

The family and friends of Paul Whitters came together for the launch of ‘Paul Whitters: A generous spirit’, a “lovely book” his mother, Helen, said she would “treasure”.

Helen Whitters, mother of 15-year-old Paul Whitters at the launch of a booklet about her beloved son. Included are family and relatives. (PHOTO: Tom Heaney, nwpresspics).

Helen, who had travelled from her home in Glasgow, thanked Stuart Ross from the Pat Finucane Centre, the author of ‘Paul Whitters: A generous spirit’ for “taking the interest to do this lovely book, which I will treasure”.

Describing her much loved son, Helen said: “Paul was a 15-year-old boy, full of life looking forward to his future. He loved fishing; playing his music - he played the tin whistle. He loved people. He loved interacting with people of all ages, it didn’t matter, young, old, middle-aged, whatever, Paul had a knack of interacting.

“He was a kind boy. He was popular in the area. He did a paper round in the area where we lived and not only did he deliver papers, he would have asked people, ‘Can I get you a message when I’m out, that was the type of boy he was,” recalled Helen.

“It has been an emotional week here for me in Derry ” she added. “Talking about Paul continually this week has brought lots of memories back to the surface, reliving those 10 days [when Paul was in hospital].”

Asked if she thought she would ever get justice for Paul, Helen replied: “I really don’t know how to answer that. My initial response is, ‘No’. 

“Maybe I should hope,” she added. “Lots of people have taken a bit of interest, and it goes so far and then it stops.”

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One woman for whom the launch was particularly emotional was Mary Kay Mullan. 

Relatively new to Derry City in April 1981, Mary Kay was an eyewitness to Paul’s murder and gave evidence at his inquest, an event described by Paul’s family as a “sham”.

Speaking to The Derry News, Mary Kay vividly recalled the teenager's death.

“It was the Wednesday before Easter and Bobby Sands was dying on the Hunger Strike and there was a big rally in Guildhall Square in the afternoon,” she said.

“It was felt in the air - desperation - ‘We have to keep him alive but they are going to let him die’. Everybody was really traumatised. There was huge emotion, a sense of not knowing what you could do. We came back from the rally to the house I was renting at the time - 36, Great James Street,” she added.

“Stevenson’s Bakery opened out into William Street but also had a back door in Great James Street. And that’s where it happened, nearly where O’Hare’s Chemist is now. I think Stevenson’s Bakery was where An Cultúrlann is today.

“Peter Mackenzie had been up at the shop and he came into our house shouting, ‘Stay in, stay in, shut the door, shut the door’ and we looked out the front window and a couple of young fellas raced down the street and they were throwing stones at the windows on the first floor opposite. 

“There was a lorry delivering at the back door [of the bakery]. When Peter said ‘Stay in’, the lorry closed up its doors and went off and the doorman looked up the street and there were young people up at Lower Road and he went in and closed the door, so the street was empty other than these couple of young fellas.

“I raced up the stairs and as I got up there, I saw one young boy, in a yellow tee-shirt as far as I remember -  left and there burst out of the small bakery door, this big RUC man [Constable David Galway], in total riot gear, with a gun on his shoulder and he fired the bullet. He didn’t stop. They could have grabbed the young fella,” said Mary Kay. 

“So the young boy was lying on the ground in the middle of the road and the other cops came out and they were laughing, as far I remember,” added Mary Kay, “and they grabbed him by an arm and a leg.

A section of the audience including Foyle MP Colum Eastwood and Cllr Pat Murphy. (PHOTO: Tom Heaney, nwpress pics).

Opening the launch of ‘Paul Whitters: A generous spirit’, Paul O’Connor, director of the Pat Finucane Centre highlighted the “strangest meeting” he ever attended - with the British Secretary of State Karen Bradley, with the Whitters family.

“We met the Secretary of State to ask why there was a file about Paul, and about Julie Livingston - a 14-year-old girl from Belfast - and both were closed until 2062, I think it was, when there would have been nobody alive that would have remembered Paul,” said Mr O’Connor

“We said, ‘Why is the file closed?’ This is a file sent to the National Archives by the NIO with the request it remained closed for 50 years. She said, ‘I’m really sorry, I don’t know’. ‘Why don’t you know?’, ‘Because it’s closed’, ‘Why didn’t you look in the file before we came to find out why it’s closed?’, ‘Because it’s closed’, and we said, ‘But it is you who authorises the closure’ and she had no answer for us. 

“It was unbelievable and deeply insulting for the two families there on the day. But we embarrassed them so much i the aftermath of that, they eventually had to open all the files,” said Mr O’Connor.

Helen Whitters, mother of 15-year-old Paul Whitters. Included from left: Stephen Brown, Tony Brown, Stuart Ross (Researcher), Gerard Brown, Sara Duddy, and Paul O'Connor (Pat Finucane Centre). (PHOTO: Tom Heaney, nwpress pics).

Author of ‘Paul Whitters: A generous spirit’, Stuart Ross described the book as a “labour of love” and “a celebration, a tribute to Paul”.

In an incisive contribution, Paul’s uncle Antoine De Brún referenced An Taoiseach Micheál Martin’s “stout defence” of British PM Kier Starmer in the Oval Office on St Patrick’s Day past.

“While they were speaking, other names came into my mind. I though of Pat Finucane, Stephen McConomy, Paul, Annette McGavigan, too many names to recount today. 

“Do I trust Mr Starmer or Hilary Benn? No. Do I have confidence in Mr Starmer or Mr Benn. No. 

“What do I have confidence in? I have confidence in the work of the Pat Finucane Centre and all those solicitors who spend their days striving for peace and justice,” he said.

Derry poet and author closed the event by reciting ‘If I Must Die’ by Palestinian professor, poet, and activist Refaat Alareer (1979–2023), As Gaeilge agus Béarla. 

Thanking the audience, Paul O’Connor reiterated the stark statistic that 26% of all children killed in the North during the conflict, 16 years and younger, were killed by the British Army and the RUC.