Episode 1 The Nolan Show

Thank you. Good evening, how are you doing

tonight? It's the first show of 2014 and we

hope we have a big TV year like we did last year. Here's what we've got

for you tonight. Has Ian Paisley made himself a laughing stock? Is he

right to feel betrayed by his party and his church? Or is this just a

bitter old man? The man that they put in my position could not keep

his own seat. Dressing up kids as beauty queens.

US-style child beauty pageants are heading our way. Should Ulster say

no? The human tragedy behind joyriding.

A son is forced to speak out. Ian Paisley bares his teeth, turning

on Peter Robinson. Who would have ever thought we'd

have seen so much blood on the carpet, between two of our biggest

politicians? The man that they put in my position couldn't keep his own

seat. He couldn't keep his own seat in Westminster, and my son who

followed me had a marvellous victory. And for once, we are seeing

the two nature of the beast, that there was a beast here who was

prepared to go forward, to the destruction of the party, because

losing seats in Northern Ireland is a very serious thing. And for East

Belfast, not to be a Unionist seat, in the House of Commons, is a

terrible blow. Jim Allister is in the studio with me, and joining us

from Wales is former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Peter

Hain. You have popped that Peter Robinson, you quite enjoy it, you

have got to feel sorry for him when he says that, he so many hours

worked with for decades, do you feel sorry for the first Minister? My

overall impression is that it was pretty unedifying for everyone, both

those making the allegations and for the DUP in respect of which they

were made. I think that we do have to give some account for the fact

that the contributors were both people advanced in years, but having

said that, they chose to take part and therefore, they have to stand

over what they said. When Ian Paisley called Peter Robinson, the

First Minister this country, the beast, is that a step too far? I was

shocked at the language. Is it too far? I think it is. Ian Paisley has

also been given to colourful and extravagant language, but I do think

that there were things said in that programme that would've been left

unsaid. Why, Jim? I think that they distorted the message that Ian

Paisley was trying to give. I think he is quite better. I can understand

that, he had perfected the selling of the deal to the faithful, job

that nobody else could do in the DUP, and on the done that, his

wagons were circled and he was ushered out because he had served

his bus. Obviously, over the years, that has festered in him and very

much embittered him. On the other hand, it is very unrealistic to

think that when somebody is in their 80s, there should be no thought of

them retiring. I think it is quite clear that when the weekend first

Minister, once he had done the deal which nobody else could do, once he

had soldered, which nobody else in the DUP could do, certainly you to

Robinson couldn't do it, then at that stage, yet served his purpose

and he was becoming a bit of an embarrassment with a chuckle Brother

routine and thundering through some of the officers and the jobs etc,

and I think that they decided, the party came first, they decided pot

he had to go. If they did push out, were they right to push out? Were

they right to push out if they did? My own judgement is, that he should

have gone years before, because for many of the latter years, he was not

performing as he ought to have performed, but he was retained, I

suppose, out of deference to his long years of service and latterly,

out of a wrecking vision I Peter Robinson and others that it going to

do the St Andrews deal, they needed him to sell it. But if you ask me if

he was up to the job, no, should he have gone in his prime? Yes. And I

think you made the mistake that many politicians make. Do you think there

is a level below which abuse should not go? You think Ian Paisley went

too far, even if he did have that animosity, even if you don't have

that venom? Or is it all gloves off? Well, politics is a messy business,

but I do think when you have four years, carefully constructed this

myth that the DUP is one big happy family, it is all the more shocking

when you discover that the truth is quite different and the animosity is

as deep as it paid on the ends, and I would have thought was

irredeemable as it is. Some people are just as shocked about what

Baroness Paisley herself said, she made it a wrecked attack against the

family. Ian's name was cleared by the authorities in Stormont,

everything was proved to be force and there was no sleeve, you never

brought any sleaze, his wife didn't do anything wrong, he didn't do

anything wrong, there was nothing morally wrong with his character or

his life. We know eventually grow this sleaze did come from? It came

from the home of the man who was no leader himself, Peter Robinson, it

is his family, not from the Paisley family. Many people I have spoken to

felt sorry for Peter Robinson, a very personal tragedy for the first

Minister, and here you have the man's wife who he worked with for

many decades being that up. -- tragedy for the First Minister. That

was a low blow, I think. One does have to understand that it is

possibly part of the tapestry of the animosity that had been there for

some years, that instead of saying to her husband in his advancing

years, Mrs Paisley said, do yourself what you deserve, in terms of

retiring at a point you can enjoy the rest of your life, instead of

doing that, she seemed to be one of those inciting him to continue, with

no appreciation that there had to come and end at some point. Of

course, he liked and he had lived First Minister, and the air and the

ego that its stroke was very important to them, but I think she

should have recognised his frailties and his lack of capacity. -- the

ego. It strokes. She was talking about the man she had perceived to

be plotting and designing to get rid of her husband and that was a

cardinal sin, in terms of those things. We can work together at home

whether you think this was another dig at the first Minister. I am a

very happy man. My wife still lives with me and some of the! -- and

loves me! It doesn't take much interpretation, that one. For those

of you laughing, I do not think that you would be laughing if you were in

that situation, is that fair? Peter Hain is also joining us this

evening. Good evening to you. Is this an Ian Paisley you recognise? I

have not seen the film, the interviews, I can get snippets of

it, but to me, this isn't really the point. The point is, he was the big

man of Northern Ireland unionism, indeed, probably of Northern Ireland

politics across the divide. And I got to know him quite well. We

worked very closely together. Nobody else, whatever Jim Allister says,

nobody else could have, from the Unionist side, could have delivered

Northern Ireland from the clutches of its hideous past into a new

future. It wasn't a perfect future, it was never going to be, but he was

the one who did it. You helped him to get into power, do you think he

was pushed out? He said to me, about six months before the final

settlement of March 2007, and the devolution of May 2007, he said to

me, round about six months before, I cannot remember when, but when I was

asking him about the way that he saw his own future, and he had not yet

made up his mind whether he was going to do the deal, because he was

not sure if Sinn Fein would sign up to policing and the rule of law,

which was always his bottom line is that point, for understandable

reasons. But he hadn't really decided. Would I asked him, because

we tended to talk on to one, privately, how he saw things going?

He said, I see my role as delivering peace, get Northern Ireland into a

safe place, I think that is my destiny at that moment in the

history of our people. And then I will govern for a period and then I

will step down. I do not think he ever saw himself as going a

full-term, whether or not the circumstances of his departure...

Whether this was of his choosing, it obviously was not, but I do not

think he saw himself as going on and on ever. He did say publicly that he

would serve for the full four years if he was in office. All I can tell

you is what he said to me. If I may say so this kind of conversation, I

do not criticise you at all for it and I do not have an opinion on a

documentary that I have not seen. But you cannot take away from the

historical achievement of Ian Paisley. To come from the militant

opposition to almost any progress, to the person who helped to rescue

the people of Northern Ireland from where they had been and formed

through negotiation and tough negotiation, with Peter Robinson at

his side doing a very rational job, actually got with Martin McGuinness

and Gerry Adams to the point which we reached. Which was an enormous

achievement. Peter Robinson was also a big player, you would acknowledge

that. Do you feel sorry for the First Minister of this country being

called the beast by the man you are defending tonight? I have a lot of

admiration for Peter Robinson as well. That is not the question. Do

you feel sorry for Peter Robinson when he is called the beast? I am

not going to get involved in giving an opinion on that. Both Ian Paisley

and at his side, providing a crucial, professional, detailed --

Ian Paisley was not the man for detail, a detailed insight and

instinct on the way things could go forward. Peter Robinson was an

absolutely crucial part of the process that got us to where we did.

It could not have been delivered without Ian Paisley. They needed

each other. Whatever the chemistry ended up being. I was aware of

tensions. At one point towards the end Peter Robinson was concerned

that Ian Paisley was going too fast, having gone to slowly for the

two years previously. Let alone the decades previously. Peter and some

of the others like Jeffrey Donaldson, the people who were

making progress, were concerned that in a sense Ian Paisley had let over

them. -- laps. But this is part of politics. At the time of St Andrews

and indeed Leeds Castle, Ian Paisley I fear would have signed up to an

even worse deal than he did sign up to. I think there were some

restraints on him which came from others. I think at St Andrews he was

very anxious to do the deal and the public anxious to meet the 24th of

November deadline in 2006. It was the party that restrained him from

doing this. With all due respect, I was at St Andrews. So was I. I was

involved in the detailed negotiations with the Prime Minister

as well. I know what happened. Ian Paisley did not actually come to St

Andrews intending to sign a deal. It was a very close thing that we got

to where we did. And he was not in any sense a front runner then. It is

important to get the history right. What about the audience. I think Ian

Paisley is just trying to improve his legacy at the expense of Peter

Robinson in this case. He has mellowed out politically. But he is

putting the blame on Peter Robinson. Whose side are you on? None of them.

John is on the line. Go ahead. I believe Mr Paisley, I have followed

him from when I was a child and I believe every word that he utters. I

believe that he was pushed from both church and party but I do not agree

with the comments he made against Peter Robinson, calling him the

beast. I think that was a biblical quote. Dr Paisley, I have never

heard him tell a lie. And I disagree that Baroness Paisley went a bit far

as well. Do you think it has damaged his reputation? Not with me. I am a

supporter of Ian Paisley through and through. It has made him look bad in

a way but then again he is an old man. It is hard to see him the way

he has gone downhill. You could see it in Westminster and instalment. At

First Minister's question. He seemed to be struggling. If you want to get

in touch, details on the screen right now. We can ask a Belfast

community worker, what does he think? I think it was a mistake. It

opened up a lot of old saw is affecting him and the DUP. I think

his judgement in doing the programme probably was not very good. I have

been a supporter of Ian Paisley from the age of 17. I remember the

opening of that church. I remember listening to him on the back of

lorries, following his every word up until a certain stage in my life. I

got disillusioned in later years when he disowned those people he had

worked with in the loyalist days. He had three phases in his life. Taking

away their religious side. His first days were about getting people to

listen to him and no surrender and all this. That was the first phase

of his career. The second phase in his career was building a political

party and political machine, which he did well. And the third was

getting the goal that he had all his life. I believe he wanted to be

number one King of Ulster or Prime Minister. When you analyse the

second part of the show, sometimes you reap what you sow yourself. In

the course of all those years, he brought down to three prime

ministers. David Trimble was cut to pieces by his party in the

elections. And Ian Paisley having a go at his own party for the very

things he had foisted onto other politicians in the course of those

years. I was sad to see it because I was a supporter or both years ago,

but he disowned the sexton of my community at one stage. He would say

he stood up against loyalist violence. You are talking about our

military is. -- paramilitaries. People were telling us we had sold

out and we had to defend our country. I was 17 years old. I was

being told that my country was being sold out and what do you expect

people to do. Ian Paisley was not Gandhi. And he was not Edward Carson

because he would never have disowned the people. We went to graveyards

and jails over the years. I never saw senior loyalist people denying

the loyalist people the way Ian Paisley did. Eamon McCann, what do

you think of Ian Paisley 's legacy? In so far as it was expressed in

those programmes, it is diminished and damaged. What struck me is the

extent to which he is driven by religion. Not to be awkward about

factoring religion into these discussions. But when he referred to

Peter Robinson as the East, he's not talking about the beasts in the

field, that is the beast of revelations, the Antichrist. That is

rather extreme. Elsewhere in the programme Dr Paisley said that

unlike some others within the free Presbyterian Church, he had the ear

of God. Not that he was listening to God, but that God was listening to

him. If you look at it in that context you can see why he came

across as bitter but also confused in his bitterness. He and his wife

were obviously upset about him being deposed as moderator of the free

Presbyterian Church and Minister. But it was he who had told them on

pain of eternal damnation that they must defend their faith by resisting

the encroachment of naturalism. He drummed that into people, that was

his faith. So obviously they were devastated and disillusioned looking

at their television to see their moderator or the Minister of their

church, hail fellow well met with Martin McGuinness. He seemed to have

no understanding of his own role in his own downfall. His breach with

people who had been around him all the time. Peter Hain said a few

months ago, at the end of the day he was the only man who could have sold

this deal to the Unionist people in the North. Maybe at the time there

was some truth in that. But if it had not been for the fact that he

had demonised and destroyed a whole series of Unionist leaders

beforehand because he alleged they were about to do a deal, some other

deal might well have been done many years earlier with fewer people

killed. He seemed to have no insight into that. Peter Hain? I would just

offer this comment. Leaders sometimes have to go well ahead of

their followers in order to make tough choices and to get agreement.

Nelson Mandela had to do that in South Africa. Leadership puts you in

that position. And sometimes, and possibly Ian Paisley founded

difficult, having shown that leadership and showed enormous

courage to do that, probably found it difficult to turn around and find

that instead of adulation as he had been used to most of his political

career when he had been the one always saying no and providing an

echo chamber for the people behind him, to then find that people were

questioning what he did. Because always, followers do not understand.

Are you seriously comparing Ian Paisley to Nelson Mandela? Of course

I am not. I'm simply making the point that leaders often have to do

things which leaders are there to do, to lead. Similarly Gerry Adams

and Martin McGuinness led Sinn Fein to that position and persuaded their

very suspicious rank and file on for example signing up to devolved

policing and the rule of law. That is what leadership requires and he

showed that. I'm not in the adulation camp for Ian Paisley but I

think he deserves credit, regardless of these interviews that may or may

not have occurred which I have not even seen. You may not have seen

them, but they did occur? ! You can start well but you need to finish

well. In this country for the past 40 odd years, we have been fighting.

All the leaders want to lead but they do not want to hand over the

legacy of a better future. That is why they should sign up to be

harassed talks. -- to the Haas talks. He should have worked

together because it is the gospel of peace, not of war. Harold Goode is

on the line. Are you proud of how Mr Paisley delivered what he really

thought in those films? Let me say this first, we are all curious

people, and there is curiosity about disputes between Ian Paisley, his

church and his party, but these are internal, domestic matters for the

Paisley family and the parties and the church to sort out in their own

way and in their own place. I am concerned about this being turned

into almost a soap where people are watching the next episode. Who

turned it into that? The man who controlled the information and

brought it away from being internal with Ian Paisley, one man. I just

think it is very sad, it is a great pity, and we're all being drawn into

it. Why do you think he did it, Harold? Let me say this, we all have

our own stories, are all views about Ian Paisley, and I am no exception.

We all have our thoughts on his activities of the past, his impact

on the political and religious life at this province, and I, like many

others over the years have been at the receiving end of his rhetoric,

about the betrayal of the truth, his protests that he led and the people

that he gathered around Rome church gates when we were having ecumenical

services at Petra, and you can go on and on and on. Some people may be

surprised to hear me say something that sounds supportive or

sympathetic towards Ian Paisley, but let me say this, as a pastor and a

preacher, of the Gospel, I have spent 50 or more years of my life

proclaiming that all of us can change. We are all called to make

personal journeys that at times we find very, very difficult. But let

me say this, in my conversations and my observations, I have seen a man

make a journey, a very difficult journey, a very difficult personal

journey, a journey that took him to a place that he had long resisted, a

journalist Steve that I do not think he wanted to make. -- a journey that

I do not think he wanted to make. He was aware of the risk of losing his

friends, his party has church, the risk of being accused of being a

hypocrite, being misunderstood, as he had. I was struck on the second

programme and he read the statement, I think it had a lot about where he

was coming from, you read the statement about the four demand he

made of Republicans, and he said that when they met those demands, I

was honour bound to respect and to respond, as he did, and I think

that, as Peter Hain has said, that must not be forgotten. And that is

the question, even for his supporters, were what he has said

about his own former friends and colleagues, will that overshadow

what he did when he was standing side-by-side with them? Let us see

what reaction we're getting tonight, this young man here, go ahead. At a

time when the Unionist community feel so under threat, should the

Democratic Unionist party not be looking to the future instead of who

said what in the past? Have a look at what is the DUP, what he received

during this film, Nigel Dodds. When he came in and he said, Nigel Dodds

wants me to go by the end of this week, I said he was a cheeky sod to

ask you to do any such thing. I said what authority has he? I was angry

and shocked because I thought of how he had been treated by Ian in

Europe, he had given him this post to encourage him, and then, this is

the thanks that he gets of the day. Ayew frightening -- are you

frightened of this happening to you, people that know your inner secrets

turning a new? ! No, I am only frightened of Stephen Nolan!

APPLAUSE I'm sure it is easy to say that one

should know when you get to the point when you have done her best

work and it is time to go. I worked for Ian Paisley for two years in the

European Parliament for them 30 years ago. There are a couple of

things I remember him telling me and saying to me, and one of them, I had

much cause to reflect on over the years. There was an occasion when

some old clerical friend of hers in United States of America had lost

his way by virtue of senility, I suppose, he got very old, and I

remember Ian Paisley saying to me, Jim, he was about 55 at the time,

when I am 65, I am retiring, because I have seen too many old men make

fools of themselves. And I think that is a history lesson in respect

of many oil, in political life, where they come to the point that

they think that they are indispensable, that nobody else can

do the job and I think that was part of Ian's problem in that regard.

What a retired? -- what age when you retire at? As soon as I can. Ayew 60

at? -- are you 60 at? I am. When my work is done, I will think it is

worth while worth doing. Give our guests a round of applause.

Lots of ways to get in touch with us tonight, all of the details coming

up on your screen, you can call us...

Still to come on the programme. Here's what was happening just a few

weeks ago on New Year's Eve on the Falls Road.

We hear from a priest who knows only too well the human cost of so-called

joyriding. A couple of generations ago they

might have looked something like this. Over, now, to meet some

contestants in a friendly competition at the baby show. This

is one competition where a pretty face doesn't count for too much,

watch out for things like good teeth, or rather good gums, but

whatever the judges are saying, we think it is just cute! But nowadays

bonny baby competitions have moved up a notch. The American phenomenon

of child beauty pageants is moving across the pond. Later this year

Texas-based "Universal Royalty" will holding three pageants in Ireland.

And for the first time, one of them will be staged right here in

Belfast. Just last September, Universal

Royalty's inaugural Irish pageant was met with criticism, and the

event was ultimately scaled back. Pageant organiser Annette Hill joins

us live from Texas. Why are you coming back when last year was such

a disaster? I wouldn't say it was a disaster, you said it was a

disaster. The pageant was a success, I would not come back from

America to Ireland wasn't a demand for it, and we're coming back

because of the demand. The demand for what? A demand to compete in

beauty pageants which you already have there. To dress up children? To

their hair? Plaster them in a make-up? Tissue Competition

Commission was no, family competition, play dress up for the

day. It turns these children into them thinking they have to compete

in a beauty contest, that is what they are doing, they have to be more

beautiful than other people, they are not worth as much of their not

absolutely stunning! -- if they are not. But we have other aspects of

competition, we have Irish pride, talent, personality, we have other

aspects of competition, not just beauty. But they are expected to

have long males, they get their nails done, some of these

seven-year-old, seven and a old children are given spray tans.

Absolutely not, absolutely not, I do not like spray towns on children,

what you're seeing as far as entertainment television, that is

entertainment television. That is not part of our gentry, if that was

the case, we were not becoming all the way from America to Ireland.

This lady is delusional, certain things do not ring true. It was not

a success when you came to Ireland, you try to host a beauty pageant in

Dublin, and you try to move it when people realised what it was, because

they said, no we are not hosting it. Finally found a beer garden and you

held it there, out of 75 people that applied, I think only about 20

turned up. Some of them flew in from England and Australia, so I do not

know as they are all from Ireland. The coming back, and you are doing

it for free, which I think you believe is being a loss leader to

try and drum up a slice of Americana that we can do without in this

country. Begin do without it, these children are spray tanned, they are

made to wear adult dresses and sometimes showcase their talent

singing songs, a six old girl I believe is wearing a poker. Green

bikini dancing to inappropriate songs. Does anyone believe that this

is appropriate behaviour for a six-year-old child was only doing it

because their parents told them to? APPLAUSE

Do you want to reply? I'm sorry, I could not hear you. OK! Let's go to

the audience. I do not know if I am from a different planet from where

you are, but have we not spent the last generation from moving away

from saying that you have two B size zero, is it not more of harm to

their confidence and self-esteem, let's be honest, if the child is of

the age of six, is the child making the decision to go into the

competition? Do not trust a parent to know the best for their child, do

we not trust the parents to understand the relationship they can

have with that child and say this is dressing up for the day, this is all

right? But the costumes are not appropriate for that age. What about

costumes for Irish dancing? You dress up kids in expensive

costumes, adorned with rhinestones, you have wigs, you have make up,

with the beauty pageant, you are not required to make break-up, you are

not required to have tans. -- required to wear make-up. This is

only 10% of what you see. I am looking at some of the rounds, these

lifts rounds, that might be part of these pageants. Rhinestones, it is

rhinestones! I am looking at what you're bringing to Belfast, and the

sassy walk and the pretty feet round for six-year-olds, the daycare

including fake hair around for six-year-olds! -- the bake her.

Which you have and are standing. -- in Irish dancing. Slippers, fake

teeth. We do not have that here! You want a six-year-old to have fake

teeth? No, you want a six-year-old to have fake teeth! Is this has the

entrance Compleat? -- has some of the entrance Compleat? Let us what

you think at home, get in touch with us, all of the details are on

screen. Eden Wood is with this, as is Nicky

Wood, good evening to you, maybe you can tell us all about Eden and what

this beautiful little girl has done over the years? Well, we started

with the baby beauty pageants completely by accident, I picked up

from her baby-sitter at 14 months old and C suggested put in a

pageants because everyone complimented on how cute she was and

her journey started completely by accident, but it is a journey that

has led to so many avenues that she would not have had otherwise had she

not had the stage, the catalyst of pageants. She just finished her

first movie in Hollywood, so, I did not the first part of the

conversation, I heard some of it, but for us, we have always tried to

balance everything that Eden did with a normal life, school

activities, church, being taught morals and values thing that I think

that is not coming across in your conversation is that this is

completely up to the parents discretion, there is nobody out

there with a big web that is saying, you have to wear slippers, you have

to turn your child, this is things that people decide in their own

family unit if they want to do it or not, it is not mandatory, Eden

competed for 56 years and never, ever wore a flipper. We are just

seeing Eden on screen. You are a beautiful little girl. How were you

feeling when you were competing? I loved it because I got to get on the

stage and perform. I just had so much fun. Did you feel any pressure

to be useful 's no, I loved it. -- to be beautiful. At some point along

the way if you are a good parent and your child is acting out then you

need to step up and say maybe my child does not like this. Maybe this

is not what they need to be doing. So as an late in life parent and

teacher of elementary stage students, you have to use common

sense. If I had to drag her onstage that would have been a good

indicator that it was time to quit, but that did not happen. How old are

you? I am eight years old and I will turn nine in February. And you are a

film star already? Yes. Thank you for talking to us.

I just wonder if that has changed your mind in the studio at all. I

think they are far too young to be parading about like that. You think

of paedophiles looking at little girls half naked like that. There

are two young to make the decision. -- they are too young. I think it is

OK to want the best for your kids and encourage confidence. And it is

also OK to encourage competition because there is so much of that in

the adult world. It is also OK to dress up and play make-believe. But

these pageants are exploiters because they encourage and many

adult look and feel. That little girl said she was doing it for fun.

But that bikini outfit, I think it is wrong. Your breeding narcissism

which is a dangerous thing in a still developing young mind. It

leaves you open as a developing human being to lots of potential

danger. Her mum sounds like a sensible lady and I think if she

ever said she did not want to do it any more sheep probably would back

off. But I think they get hooked. I think it has brought things into her

life but that does not always happen. And what about the girls who

do not win, the disappointment in their lives, feeling rejected and

unloved because they are valued purely on how they look. Patricia is

in Antrim. What do you think? As a mother myself I think it is a

disgrace that any mother should have their child in a beauty pageant. I

think it is disrespectful. And also the young girls who call on the

show, if they do not win they might think they are not good enough or

not pretty enough. But to be fair to the parents we just saw and the

organiser of this, is that not about how the parent protects the child

just as much? You're not protect you child by putting out photographs of

them in a bikini. But when you talk about the competition element and

the child, how they feel if they do not win. But the kid in sports day

with the pushy parent who has pushed them to be a winner from an early

age, is there much difference? I think there is. Sports day and

things like that, that is part of a school activity. Beauty pageant is

not something a child has to compete in. For me it is a mother 's way of

doing what they did not get to do, putting their kids up with make up,

it is disrespectful. Taylor-Rae Hamilton, you organise beauty

pageants in Northern Ireland, how do they differ? Well they differ, I

disagree with the American style of beauty pageant. All the girls are

painted up and there is no individuality or diversity. They are

like miniature adults. But for me, they are just kids on stage. It is

all about beauty on the inside. We do the race for life, everyone

becomes friends together and onstage it is just about having a bit of

personality and feeling no pressure. But you still have winners and

losers. All the girls get a certificate of achievement.

We used to call it joyriding, but nowadays death driving is seen as a

more appropriate way of describing what's happening. Whatever it's

called, decades on, those who steal cars for enjoyment continue to wreak

havoc on lives. Mother-of-seven Maureen Sheehan was killed by a

joyrider on West Belfast's Falls Road in April 2000. A community

nurse out on her rounds, Maureen died when the stolen car ploughed

into her car. Maureen was a much-loved community nurse who

worked in the area. 14 years on, and one of her sons, Patrick, now a

Parish Priest posted in the nearby Poleglass area, has been faced with

a task he's being dreading since that day. Thank you for coming in. I

guess you always knew that you would face a day potentially like you had

to. I did. As a priest working in Belfast I always felt that this day

would come. And I dreaded it in some ways and I am glad it did not come

around ten years ago. I felt more prepared to face it now. What was

that day? It was a young man from the parish, just 22, killed in a

joyriding incident. We had to bury him last week. And I had to

officiate at the funeral. It is the first time I have had to do that

since my mother was killed by a joyrider. That was not in the public

domain, not everyone at that funeral certainly would have known. At the

beginning of the programme I would like to rebalance what you said. I

do not feel forced to speak out. What I think was happening was that

as a priest I had to speak in that situation. Saint Paul uses the

phrase, speaking the truth in love. It was the situation where you had

to be true to yourself, you are feeling your own pain but you also

have two speak about the truth of what has happened and also speak of

love. Because the person who has died is someone 's son or grandson.

And you'll officiating last week at the funeral of a joyrider, and in

your heart and in your head, you lost your mum because of a joyrider.

What was going on in here and in here when you were doing that? What

made it easier was what was going on in the past 14 years. That was an

important journey for me. What was going on, as a priest I was called

to speak the truth in love. I was apprehensive going to the family

house. The family were perhaps apprehensive meeting me. But the

parents of the young man put me at ease. They were broken by the

situation. They helped me to kind of deal with it. If I just tell you

what I said, I began the sermon, what had happened was a tragedy. The

22-year-old man dying in heartbreaking circumstances is a

tragedy. But I also had to say they were circumstances that could have

been avoided and should have been avoided. That is the hardness of

speaking the truth in love. You sometimes have to speak what is true

but you have to try to speak it in love. So the people doing this would

somehow here, not your anger but God 's love. And you were holding this

story of what happened to you personally. What happened on the day

she was killed? She was a community nurse. She was doing calls around

the lower Falls Road. She was going to work, she may have been going to

mass, which she usually did. She was killed on the road to spread the

joyriding incident you televised had happened. That was the spot where

she was killed. So the actual location was very close. Yes. That

was the location. I have had a look at this story and I simply do not

know how much it is still going on in Northern Ireland. What I have

seen is some footage, not associated with what happened last week, but

what is still going on in our streets. This happened just a couple

of weeks ago on the Falls Road, New Year's Eve. Have a look at this.

Still going on. What do you say to the people who are doing that? Can

you communicate with them? That is the big question. If we cannot,

where I'll be left? I do not know whether they know that that was the

spot where my mother was killed. If it was the spot I would be saying to

them, if you knew that a community nurse who served your community and

probably attended your grandparents, if you know that and

that was the spot where she died, you have disrespected the memory of

somebody who was caring for the community there. Actually the health

centre there is named after my mother. The Maureen Sheehan centre.

That is what the community wanted to happen. The reason why they need to

hear this is if people disrespect professionals who are caring for

them who is going to care for them in the future. I want them to hear

the love that is coming across because if they lose out, and they

will lose out, society will lose out as well. Have you been able to

forgive? That is a question everybody wants to ask. I can enter

it in this way. It is not a simple question and yes or no does not do

justice to stop people here who may have suffered, there is a phrase in

the cat is given of the Catholic church that helped me. -- catechism.

It is not within our power not to feel or to forget an offence. And

this was a hard offence. But the hard that opens itself to the spirit

can with the help of God to an injury into compassion. So I would

say that 14 years later, I say this as a priest, if I did not have a

spiritual power in my life I could not be speaking to you now about

this and I could not say that God 's forgiveness is the most important

thing. Thank you for joining us this evening and thank you for watching

tonight. Goodbye everybody.