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# 20 years on
Veronica Guerin's son: 'My mother never wanted to be a victim.'
Cathal Turley says living with hatred wouldn’t be true to her memory.
THE ONLY CHILD of murdered journalist Veronica Guerin says that what she did in her work was all for the benefit of the Irish people.
Cathal Turley was just six years old when his mother was gunned down on the Naas Road almost 20 years ago.
Speaking in an interview with the Sunday Independent, Turley says that his mother “didn’t want people to live in fear”
My mother never wanted to be a victim. Everything she did was for the benefit, it sounds cheesy, but was for the benefit of the Irish people and the people of Dublin. She wanted better things for those people, she didn’t want people to live in fear or to be enslaved by their addiction and I don’t think she went out to purposely go after specific people. I think if she was covering dodgy politicians I think she’d go after them just as hard as she went after gangland criminals, you know.
“I think her goal was to sort of help the Irish people or the people of Dublin and whether that be criminals that were working in the banks or criminals selling drugs in the streets. I think she would have been just after that.”
Speaking to Brendan O’Connor, Turley says that he wouldn’t be true to her memory if he spent his time being angry about what happened.
“It’s 20 years on, if I was to live with that hatred, I wouldn’t really be living life at all and I think my mother wouldn’t be at all pleased with that. If she thought my life solely revolved around her death… she never wanted to be a victim.”
Read: Veronica Guerin’s killer has application against his conviction rejected >
Read: Defence team for Veronica Guerin’s killer says court must look at ‘flaw’ in original trial >
