Gordon Wilson

gordon wilsonGordon Wilson (1927-95) was a peace campaigner whose calls for forgiveness and reconciliation contributed to the Northern Ireland peace process in the 1990s. The eldest of four children, Wilson was born in the Republic of Ireland, raised Methodist and educated at Wesley College in Dublin. His family moved to Enniskillen, County Fermanagh immediately after World War II. Wilson later took over the drapery store owned by his father. In November 1987 Wilson and his daughter Marie, a 20-year-old student nurse, were attending a Remembrance Day ceremony in Enniskillen when a Provisional IRA bomb exploded, burying them in debris. Wilson reported holding hands and talking to his daughter as they lay crushed beneath the rubble. He survived but Marie died from her injuries, along with 10 other victims.

Shortly after Wilson gave the media a heartbreaking account of his daughter’s last moments. He also asked for no reprisals from Loyalists, proclaiming his forgiveness for the men responsible for her death. Wilson’s simple grief became one of the most poignant moments of the Troubles and his willingness to forgive was dubbed the ‘Spirit of Enniskillen’. Though an accidental spokesperson for peace, Wilson nevertheless accepted the challenge. In 1990 he authored a book about his daughter, titled Marie: Story from Enniskillen. In February 1993 Republic of Ireland taoiseach Albert Reynolds appointed Wilson to the Seanad Éireann (Senate) as an independent member. He met with Provisional IRA leaders after the 1993 Warrington bombing that killed two young boys, begging them to consider a conditional ceasefire. Wilson also met with Loyalist paramilitary leaders and attended Sinn Fein’s 1994 peace commission.

Gordon Wilson died from a heart attack in June 1995. Albert Reynolds said of Wilson that “he went among the people, both North and South, and carried his message to both North and South in the same gentle manner”.


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