The very early childhood smell that never left Liam T. Cosgrave

Friends and relations recall that the memory of Liam T Cosgrave was incredible - even to the very end. And for stories from his childhood.

One was that  of the smell of burning timber from age 3  - when an Anti-Treaty IRA gang burnt their home.  Like Arlene Foster seeing her RUC father Con John Kelly crawl into the kitchen of their small farmhouse in Dernawilt on the Fermanagh Border, with blood streaming from his head after the Provo attempt to murder him [ typically when off-duty ].

Those memories forged a Steel which never left either of them. They could never forget such horrors or also the ideology and gang behind those horrors.

Remembering and telling those truths - about the grim and never-changing reality of terror - makes us free. And determined to resist them.  Not wishful thinking or evasion or silence.