Twenty years ago, still reeling from the killing of their 12-year-old son Tim by an IRA bomb that tore through a busy shopping street in Warrington town centre, Colin and Wendy Parry set up an office in their spare bedroom and initiated a scheme that brought together young people from Belfast, Dublin and the small Cheshire town.
On Wednesday, the couple welcomed President Michael D Higgins and his wife Sabina to the Warrington Peace Centre, now a thriving, internationally-recognised institution that has outlived the Troubles and has turned its focus towards the threats of global terrorism and the radicalisation of young people in Britain.
Three-year-old Johnathan Ball was also killed in the 1993 bombing. The two boys' faces became familiar to millions of people in Ireland and Britain, and their deaths brought thousands onto the streets of Dublin under the slogan "Not in Our Name".
Revulsion
On an occasion that focused on the links between the Warrington Centre and Ireland, Colin Parry recalled the crowds that gathered outside the GPO to show their revulsion at the bombing, and how he could scarcely walk three steps on Grafton Street the morning after his appearance on the Late Late Show without being stopped and comforted by passersby.
“It was both humbling and gratifying in equal measure,” he said.
Mr Higgins paid tribute to Colin and Wendy Parry and to Wilf and Marie Ball, the now deceased parents of Johnathan, remarking that the centre built in their names was a "unique memorial" to the two boys.
“While a terrible and heinous act cannot, and should not, for the most moral of reasons, be dissolved or forgotten, it is only through an act of imagination and creativity that we can prevent that tragic memory from colonising our future,” he said in an address.
"The immense space left behind by the loss of Tim Parry and Johnathan Ball has been used to build a place of healing and reconciliation – that is an achievement from which we can all draw inspiration."
In recent years, the peace centre has turned its attention to one of Britain’s greatest contemporary preoccupations: the radicalisation of young people.
On this “impressive and inspiring work”, Mr Higgins said radicalisation was rapidly becoming “one of the most significant threats in a global society”, as those who were socially isolated are increasingly invited to turn to extremism in search of “a purpose, a role, an identity.”
“We must give leadership in identifying and tackling the social conditions in which extremism can take root,” Mr Higgins added.
“Tackling issues such as youth unemployment, inadequate social infrastructure, and limited opportunity for participation are important in this regard, as is a critically aware engagement with belief systems and ideologies, an engagement that eschews any imposition of claims of certainty, or fear or exclusion of ‘the other’.”
Colin Parry spoke of the “ongoing support and friendship” of the Irish people and their state, noting that the Department of Foreign Affairs continued to fund the centre’s work and that President Higgins was the third president of Ireland to show his support and solidarity. “The friendship of the Irish people will never be forgotten,” he said.
On a separate leg of his official visit to Britain on Wednesday, Mr Higgins was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws by the University of Liverpool.
Education
In an address at the conferral ceremony in the university’s philharmonic hall, Mr Higgins recalled that he had been the first member of his family to go to university and stressed the importance of education in shaping one’s life.
He told the new graduates that while a university education was sometimes seen as a commodity, it was above all a “source of personal liberation and empowerment” to be carried forward into society.
“We must ensure that members of our society are equipped with the skills to question and challenge decisions made by individuals and institutions in positions of power and authority, so as to ensure that such decisions are ethical, based on fairness and not based on any privilege derived from wealth or class or social status,” he said.
Mr Higgins and Sabina joined other dignitaries and representatives of Liverpool’s Irish community at a dinner in celebration of the university’s honorary graduates.
Tim Parry Johnathon Ball foundation’s aims
Its mission – preventing violent conflict and supporting those affected by terrorism – has remained the same, but the peace foundation set up by Colin and Wendy Parry is increasingly preoccupied with new conflicts and different forms of terrorism.
Through school visits, in-house training and workshops, the Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Foundation for Peace – its full name – devotes considerable effort to working with groups of young people who are considered at risk of radicalisation. The shift began after the “7/7” London bombings and has grown more uprgent with the rise of Islamic State, says Parry.
“We work with young people, providing a safe space in which they can air their grievances and discuss political, economic and social issues, discuss the things they see happening in their communities,” says Kelly Simcock, director of commissions. “Essentially, to build their ability to think critically and about the consequences of some of the causes they might become involved in.”
The foundation draws on its work in Ireland in tackling the fallout from the conflict in Syria and Iraq. ‘My Former Life’, a film used in training programmes, tells the sobering stories of four “veterans” of violent conflict, one of whom is a former member of the INLA.
“We set out to show that extremism doesn’t just exist in one form,” says Ms Simcock.
“We spent 10 years working very closely with communities in Northern Ireland, understanding what it was that was causing those fractures and divisions. The lessons certainly are applicable.”
