Irish rock used in tribute
The remembrance wall unveiled in the western Canadian city of Vancouver over the weekend incorporates a single black stone from Ahakista to mark the place where much of the wreckage of the bombed flight was washed up on shore.
The wall, which is inscribed with the names of the 331 passengers, crew and baggage handlers who died in the 1985 atrocity, is one of a series of memorials being erected at key locations around Canada to give families dispersed across the vast country a selection of places to grieve, remember and reflect.
Chairman of the Ahakista Memorial Committee, Michael Murphy, who worked for Cork County Council at the time and was instrumental in having a memorial constructed in the village in the months following the bombing, attended the Vancouver ceremony at the invitation of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Many of the victims’ families have travelled to Ahakista for annual commemorations over the years and Mr Murphy said it was sad but appropriate that they would now have somewhere closer to home to share their memories.
“This is a stunning place. It is so natural, overlooking the water, the trees, the flowers, the whole setting is just absolutely beautiful,” he said of the seaside picnic spot chosen for the memorial’s construction in Vancouver’s famous Stanley Park.”
A public inquiry into the disaster opened in Ottawa last year and is still underway.
