Lundy Family Letter

Copy of letter sent yesterday from Daniel Lundy to NGA (Belfast) Chairman Liam Shannon, regarding the omission of his father's name from the new Co.Antrim Memorial at Milltown. Please pass on.

3rd September 2012
Liam,

As Chairperson of National Graves Association (Belfast), I feel it is necessary to bring to your attention a matter that has caused our family undue suffering and distress.

My father, Alan Lundy, was a dedicated lifelong Republican activist. He was assassinated by a UFF death squad with the assistance of the British State on 1st May 1993, while working in the home of his friend and comrade Alex Maskey. At the time of his death he was a member of the McCaughey/Saunders Sinn Fein Cumann, and has been acknowledged at Tirghra and in Republican publications as also being an IRA Volunteer. He was also a former Republican POW.

While visiting my father’s grave, along with other family members recently, we decided to visit other graves of our patriot dead and also stopped to admire the newly erected County Antrim Memorial. To our astonishment and disgust the name of my father had been omitted. As well as the deep hurt that this has caused our family, it has also led to feelings of anger and betrayal. My father, who was a loving husband and has missed out on seeing his many grandchildren, dedicated and eventually sacrificed his life for the Republican struggle, and now NGA (Belfast) fail to see him worthy enough to have his name inscribed alongside our other patriot dead, including many of his friends and comrades from Ardoyne, The Bone and further afield.

At a recent meeting with Stormont Minister Gerry Kelly, on the separate matter of the internment of Alan’s son (also named Alan), he stated that as he viewed myself and my brother were, in his words, “political opponents of Sinn Fein” he and his party would be doing nothing to support our family in their campaign to have my brother released. As NGA (Belfast), as opposed to the nationwide National Graves Association, is led and directed by Sinn Fein members and to a Sinn Fein agenda, we have to ask does this snub now also extend to the memory of our father, husband and grandfather?

Alan Lundy, my father, was a lifelong member of the Republican Movement, as both an IRA Volunteer and Sinn Fein activist, until his assassination. To airbrush his contribution to the Republican Struggle, due to the political allegiances or lack of, of two of his sons is petty at best and purely vindictive at worst. But most of all it would a betrayal of the man himself and what he stood for, a courageous, dedicated and disciplined Republican who ultimately gave his life for his country, leaving behind his wife and five young children.

I look forward to hearing from you regarding this matter.

Daniel Lundy
(Son of Alan Lundy)