Sisters recall murder of father Terry McDaid in their home in Belfast in 1988. His case is one of 36 inquests halted by UK government’s controversial Legacy Act
Patricia and Tracey McDaid, whose father, Terry, was shot dead in the family home by loyalist paramilitaries in 1988. The sisters were six and eight years of age at the time. Photograph: Arthur Allison/Pacemaker Press
On a Tuesday in May 1988, Patricia and her older sister, Tracey, were allowed to stay up late as their grandparents were visiting after an evening swimmers class. Their mother, Maura, had just brought them up to bed when they heard a loud bang. Directly below the sisters’ bedroom, two loyalist gunmen had burst into the livingroom and shot their 29-year-old father seven times in the head and chest as he watched the 10pm news on television.
“She kept saying, ‘I’m all right, I’m all right’. When I got to the bottom, she said ‘don’t look in’ and ushered me past. I didn’t look in – but Tracey did.”“My daddy was on his knees leaning on the sofa and my mummy was over him… It was the look on her face looking at me,” she says, composing herself.Another neighbour carried Patricia out of the house: “I can remember looking back and seeing the blue lights… We didn’t know he had been shot but we knew something was wrong with all the commotion.
“We always knew after Mummy passed away that we could never let it go, even though we didn’t know all the ins and outs of it,” says Tracey. “But with her gone, my daddy had no voice; so we had to do it.
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