Lyra McKee

McKee was born on 31 March 1990 in Belfast, Northern Ireland.[3] Her interest in journalism began at fourteen years old when she wrote for the school newspaper[4] at St Gemma's High School.[5] By the following year she joined Children's Express (shortly to be renamed Headliners),[6] a charity that supports young people through helping them develop journalism skills, and through that was awarded the Young Journalist Award by Sky News in 2006.[5] She studied online journalism at Birmingham City University under Paul Bradshaw,[7] pursuing an Master of Arts degree, but did not graduate.[8] She was posthumously awarded an MA in online journalism in January, 2020; her sister, Nichola Corner, accepted the degree on her behalf.[9]

In 2011, McKee joined the staff of news aggregator Mediagazer, a sister site of technology news aggregator Techmeme.[10][11][12] In 2014, she came to wider public attention with the publication of a blog post titled "Letter to my 14-year-old self" in which she described the challenges of growing up gay in Belfast; it was subsequently made into a short film.[13][14] McKee's work as a journalist included a number of pieces that appeared in both domestic and international media.[15] Among these were articles she wrote for Mosaic[16][17] (republished by The Atlantic), The Belfast Telegraph, Private Eye[18] and BuzzFeed News.[4][19] In 2016 Forbes magazine named her as one of its "30 under 30 in media" because of her work as an investigative reporter.[15]

Publication of her first book, a non-fiction work titled Angels with Blue Faces, was imminent at the time of her death.[20] It deals with the Provisional IRA killing of Belfast MP Robert Bradford. McKee sought crowdfunding to finance its publication,[4] and it was scheduled for publication by Excalibur Press.[21] She subsequently signed a two-book deal with Faber and Faber.[14][15] At the time of her death, her second book, The Lost Boys, was scheduled for release by Faber in 2020,[22] but remained unfinished.[21] It concerns the disappearances of Thomas Spence and John Rodgers from Belfast's Falls Road in November 1974. Faber and Faber had compared the work to that of Anna Funder's Stasiland and Andy O'Hagan's The Missing.[15]

McKee wrote on the consequences of The Troubles. She notably wrote "Suicide of the Ceasefire Babies", an article on teenage suicides linked to the conflict.[19][23] At the time of her death, McKee was researching unsolved killings during The Troubles in Northern Ireland of the late 20th century.[2] In March 2019 Irish Times writer Martin Doyle featured McKee in his article "Best of Irish: 10 rising stars of Irish writing".[21][24]

She gave a TEDx talk, "How uncomfortable conversations can save lives", at TEDxStormont Women in 2017, about the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting.[4]

In 2018, she became a trustee of Headliners, the charity that had helped her as a teenager to start her career in journalism.[6]

McKee was the partner of Sara Canning, a nurse at Altnagelvin Area Hospital, and had moved to Derry to be with her.[25][26] After her death it was revealed that she had been planning to propose marriage to Canning, and had purchased an engagement ring.[27]

A PSNI Constable on the Creggan estate shortly after McKee's murder

On 18 April 2019, McKee was shot during rioting in the Creggan area of Derry, Northern Ireland.[28][29] Violence broke out after police raids on dissidents with the aim of seizing munitions ahead of the Easter Rising commemorative parades due to take place in the area that weekend. The disturbances were centred on Fanad Drive. Youths threw petrol bombs and burnt two vehicles. Police said that a gunman then fired up to twelve shots towards police officers. McKee, who was on Fanad Drive and standing near an armoured police Land Rover, was wounded in the head.[30][31] Mobile phone footage and police CCTV footage[32] shows a masked gunman, believed to be a member of the New IRA, opening fire with a handgun.[30] McKee was taken by police, in an armoured Land Rover, to Altnagelvin Area Hospital, where she later died.[30] Police blamed dissident republicans for her death.[30][33][34] The last time a journalist was killed in the UK was the 2001 assassination of Martin O'Hagan.[35]

She was survived by her partner, mother, two brothers and three sisters.[27]

McKee's funeral took place at the Anglican St Anne's Cathedral, Belfast, on 24 April.[36] It was attended by British Prime Minister Theresa May, Irish President Michael D. Higgins, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, DUP leader Arlene Foster, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald and Vice President Michelle O'Neill, and Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.[27] Members of the National Union of Journalists formed a guard of honour.[27] McKee's coffin was met with applause from the waiting public as it arrived at the cathedral.[37]

• List of journalists killed in Europe

• The Muckraker – McKee's blog, last updated March 2013
• Lyra McKee: How uncomfortable conversations can save lives – TEDx
• Journalism and Doing What We Love – Podcast featuring McKee
• We were meant to be the generation that reaped the spoils of peace - the article McKee was working on at the time of her death