Death leaves a void but Christine Buckley's legacy lives on

Christine’s closest friend Carmel McDonnell Byrne says she hopes she will never, ever be forgotten for her hard work.

Christine Buckley’s death leaves a void in many hearts but her legacy lives on as the foremost champion for victims of institutional abuse who spoke truth to power and in doing so transformed the social fabric of this country.

Christine lived much of her life in the public eye, fighting for justice for those who could not. Her fiery rhetoric silenced many of her very powerful opponents, who must have seen her as a constant thorn in their side — an achievement she would undoubtedly have quietly relished.

But the woman behind the public face was one of the most gracious, loving and compassionate people I have ever had the privilege to know.

“Christine was the most remarkable woman. We don’t realise yet what we have lost in this country and I hope she will never, ever be forgotten,” said her closest friend Carmel McDonnell Byrne.

I first met Christine on a June morning five years ago when we sat down to plan the first national march of solidarity with victims of institutional abuse.

It was a few days after the Ryan report had revealed the appalling abuse meted out to children over six decades in religious-run institutions and it had vindicated everything Christine had been telling the nation for decades.

But that morning she wasn’t sure how the country would react to such a march. Yet she was determined to go ahead with it and bring others on board. I remember her saying at the time: “The people have always supported the victims.”

The march would start, she said, at the Garden of Remembrance. It would be silent and carry a single banner with the words of the 1916 Proclamation “Cherishing all of the children of the nation equally”.

As the day of the march approached, June 10, 2009, Christine was nervous. But she needn’t have been because she had been right about the people.

They turned out in their thousands, bringing the centre of Dublin to a standstill. Many were wearing white ribbons and carrying small shoes to symbolise the innocent lives so savagely stolen in the institutions.

And as the marchers, led proudly by Christine, passed the GPO, pedestrians stopped to applaud. Some victims wept. “It was our moment of validation,” Christine said later.

When the march reached the Dáil she thanked the people who had come to show their solidarity and told the victims: “This is our day.” And it was. But without her it would never have happened because it was Christine who had begun the long, lonely march to justice decades earlier.

Now the country listens when abuse victims speak out. But when Christine dared to do so she was met by silence, or worse she was vilified. “It was like I was abused again,” she once told me.

When people with great courage achieve great changes, it is often easy to forget how hard their original battle was. It took its toll on Christine, of course, but it never for a moment weakened her resolve or caused her to waver.

“She was a warrior against injustice,” her grieving husband Donal said yesterday, “a fighter for people’s rights and dignity.”

She was also a very patient and extremely kind and thoughtful woman. Evidence of this can be seen daily at the Aislinn Education and Support Centre for Survivors of Institutional abuse, which Christine and Carmel pioneered in Dublin and where victims have found a haven of solace and strength.

That, too, is another legacy that lives on and will, hopefully, bring some comfort to her beloved family — to Donal, her husband, and to their sons Darragh and Conor and their daughter Cliona.

Ní bheidh a leithéad ann arís.