It was an ordinary rainy day with low temperatures. The midday of August 28 in
Derry/Londonderry, Northern Ireland, was unusual for 10 journalists from Kosovo
who had left their country three days earlier under extreme heat. The rain didn’t
stop during the walk from the train station to the old city center. “This rain and low
temperatures are usual for us,” one of the Northern Irish journalists told us.
Meanwhile, we felt the wind blowing even stronger as we crossed the River Foyle
via the Peace Bridge.
The name of the bridge was just the first sign of peace after more than three
decades of conflict in Northern Ireland. The bridge was opened on June 25, 2011,
connecting Ebrington Square with the rest of the city center. The Peace Bridge has become an integral part of the city’s infrastructure and is highly regarded by locals and visitors alike for its stunning physical beauty and equally for the symbolic story it represents.
The elegant, snaking curves of the cycle and footbridge tell a story of triumph over
adversity and symbolize peace, connecting the two sides of the River Foyle.
After walking for more than 20 minutes, the cobblestone streets led us to the walls
of Derry/Londonderry Castle, where we were to meet Richard Moore, whose story
would shock us.
Richard’s story is just one piece of the Northern Ireland conflict, often called “The
Troubles.” The conflict began in the 1960s and ended in 1998. It was primarily a
political and sectarian conflict rooted in the historical division between two
communities: Unionists/Loyalists, predominantly Protestant, who supported
Northern Ireland remaining part of the United Kingdom, and Nationalists/Republicans, predominantly Catholic, who sought the reunification of Ireland.
Paramilitary groups like the IRA (Irish Republican Army) and UVF (Ulster
Volunteer Force) engaged in bombings, assassinations, and other acts of violence.
The British Army was also heavily involved.
This is where Richard Moore’s story begins. Sitting before more than 20 journalists
from Kosovo and Northern Ireland, he told us that at the age of ten, he was struck by a rubber bullet in Derry/Londonderry in 1972. He lost his sight when the bullet
hit one eye and damaged the other.
“Because the school was near a police station that was target by rioters, the British
Army were brought on to protect the police station. When I got out of school in the
fourth of May, I was racing Home, along the bottom of the football pitch,” Richard
starts his story.
“I was heading towards the school gate when a soldier fired the bullet. I spent
about two weeks in the hospital and during that time in hospital, I thought that I
couldn’t see because of the bandages. My brother took me for a walk up and down
our backyard and he said to me: ‘You know what has happened?’, I said yes, and
he said to me: ‘You know what damage was done?’ and I said no, and that’s when
he told me,”Richard said.
“That night, I’m on my bed, and I cried, for the one and only time. I cried because
I couldn’t see my parents faces again, but the next day I got up my bed and began
to put the pieces of my life together,”he said.
Richard didn’t know anything about the British soldier who shot him. And it was
after 33 years in 2006 when they meet each-other for a documentary about
Richard’s life.
“If you like an incredible experience and I would say that that day was the best day
of my life, because I’ve always forgiven the soldier. And it’s one thing to be able to
forgive him, and another thing to be able to tell them you forgive. And I would
describe that as the fullness of forgiveness.”
Richard has since maintained a friendship with Charles Inness. But Moore said Inness who is from the Scottish Borders, had been unable to say
sorry until 2020.
“When it came it was really moving. I didn’t need it, I didn’t ask for it, but when it
came it was really, really nice. It really was,” Richards said. He said that Inness, 78 years old in 2020, had been of the opinion “that when you
say ‘sorry’, it means that you didn’t mean to fire the bullet.”
“He’d say: ‘I meant to fire the bullet, but I never meant to cause the damage’. He
always said if he’d known what was going to happen to me, he wouldn’t have fired
it.”
Moore said while to him that seemed like “semantics”, the more the two men got to
know each other “the more he felt the former soldier was sorry.”
“And then eventually many years after we first met, we were talking about the
‘sorry’ word one night and he said to me, ‘Richard, I am sorry’,” Mr Moore added.
The story of Richard and British soldier tells that the peace always come. Yet it
takes time.

Gent Mehmeti
Journalist