'The man who does not forgive may as well dig two graves'

MICHAEL McGoldrick was murdered in July 1996, just weeks after Garda Jerry McCabe was shot dead in Limerick.

Mr McGoldrick, a Catholic taxi driver, was the first victim of the loyalist splinter group, the LVF, set up by the renegade UVF chief in mid-Ulster Billy Wright.

He was shot five times by gunman Clifford McKeown after responding to a call. He was a victim simply "by the chance of his taxi firm's rota", the trial judge said before ordering that McKeown serve 24 years in jail.

Michael, 37, left a young daughter Emma and a pregnant wife Sadie, who gave birth to their son Andrew three months after the murder.

He was the only son of Michael and Bridie, a couple so distraught following the killing they agreed on and were about to follow through on a suicide pact. Their Christian faith stopped them doing so and has shaped their lives since.

McKeown was convicted and sentenced last year for the murder. Yet he could be out in just a few years under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement and its early release programme.

Is his release a price worth paying?

"If it means that another husband, wife, mother, father or child is not sitting in the same situation we are sitting in, then yes," Bridie McGoldrick said, speaking from her home in Portadown yesterday.

"If another family is spared what we have had to through, then that's enough."

The McGoldricks are supportive of the early release programme. "People say they want peace but not at any cost. I know the first reaction is that 'I'm spending my life without my husband, my son'. I know their pain but, as Michael says, the man who does not forgive may as well dig two graves, Because he is dead as well."

What matters to Bridie and Michael, who by any standards are a remarkable couple, is not about the length of time he spends in jail but whether he seeks forgiveness from God, finds peace and never becomes involved in violence again. "We pray that he will do that," said Bridie.

As for the possibility of a final deal to end over three decades of strife, she said: "I would love to know that our children whether their name is Billy or Dan would live a life that is free from that and live together."

Following their son's murder, they reached out and embraced hardline paramilitaries and also become involved in overseas aid. Michael snr, now 64, travels regularly to Moldova, where his organisation, United Christian Aid, sponsors over 800 families and supports an orphanage in the former Soviet republic.

Their involvement was a direct response to the murder and has added to their faith both in God and also in the people of Ireland, who have supported the couple's campaign.

As the trial of Clifford McKeown loomed, Bridie thought: "Please let him plead guilty and spare us a trial." Her grandson Andrew, then seven and well aware of details of his father's life and the circumstances of his death, had a different view. "He got very restless. We were at Mass and he was saying 'I want to light a candle'. Then he said: 'Gran, I have to light a candle for the man who killed my Daddy to tell Jesus he's sorry'." He has a lit a candle every Saturday night since, said Bridie. "We could have quite easily destroyed his life by hatred and anger," she said.