“Jim Emery picked up the child’s shoe in the street after the attack.
Castlederg had been targeted again, this time, in January 1990, his friend Olven Kilpatrick had been murdered in his shoe shop in the small town’s Main Street.
To add to their brutality the two gunmen involved left a bomb in a shoe box beside his body.
The bomb devastated the premises and started a fire; only after the fire brigade had extinguished the blaze were they able to remove the murdered part-time UDR soldier’s body from his shop.
After the street was cleared Jim picked up the little girl’s shoe which had been blown out of the shop during the explosion.
He has kept it over the years since that murderous attack in 1990.
Jim told the story of the shoe to a group of opinion formers, Grand Lodge officials and relatives of terrorist victims as they stood in Castlederg cemetery during the UN International Day of Peace event organised by the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland.
He said he kept the shoe because it reminded him of the potential future for all the children of the community.
A potential future that the IRA denied to Olven Kilpatrick, a 32 year-old father of two.
A member of LOL 1272, Bro. Kilpatrick was one of five Orangemen from the area who were murdered during the terrorist campaign.
No one has ever been made amenable in the courts for any of their murders.
In Cookstown seven Orangemen were remembered, while eight brethren were murdered in Omagh and one lodge, Tullywhisker Border Guards LOL 1120, lost six men, while others were also victims of attacks.
The UN Day of Peace event heard from Glen Espie, District Master of Cookstown District LOL, how he survived two gun attacks in which he was wounded while serving with the UDR. He was off-duty on both occasions.
There was also a call from Michael Gallagher of the Omagh Victim’s support group for a cross border public inquiry into the Real IRA bombing of Omagh which killed 31 people in August 1998.
During the day the coach party visited Tullywhisker Orange Hall, which has been attacked on a number of occasions and is literally on the border.
The Victim’s Day heard a pledge from Grand Master Edward Stevenson that the Orange Order would not allow the victims of terror to be forgotten.
The bus trip to the north west of Northern Ireland was the third UN International Day of Peace event organised by the Grand Lodge.
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Article taken from the Orange Standard
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