'Lyra still had so much to give the world,' says director of new film about late journalist

BAFTA-winning director of new film LYRA, which was executively produced by Hillary Rodham Clinton’s HiddenLight Productions, Alison Millar recalls the first time she met the young firebrand who was already chasing stories in her teens.

“I was making a documentary about the closure of the Rape Crisis Centre in Northern Ireland around 2008-9, and Lyra, at just 16 was there trying to figure out why this was happening and why funding was being withdrawn.

"I was filming and there she was, she was 16, but she looked about 12, and I assumed that she must have been there on a work placement, but no, she was a journalist already and very determined to find answers.

"She had already won Sky Young Journalist of the Year.

"I was flabberghasted and from that moment on I just realised, ‘Oh my God, this girl is incredible!’ And we became friends there and then, and that took us right up until the message I received from her the night before she died.

"Lyra would go on to become the Forbes’ 30 under 30 to watch and signed a two-book deal with Faber & Faber.

"At the time she was killed [by dissident republicans] she was really working at her peak and in my view on the cusp of just becoming enormous.

"Lyra still had so much to give the world.”

Production for the film began just before Covid struck and then was halted by the death of Lyra’s beloved mother Joan, for whom Lyra had been a carer. Joan passed away a few weeks before the first anniversary of Lyra’s murder – she never got over her loss; Lyra had always lived with her mother just off the Antrim Road before relocating to Lononderry shortly before her death with her partner Sara [Canning] to whom she had been engaged and intended to marry.

"Lyra came from an incredibly tight-knit family, with a lot of strong women around her who always supported, loved and encouraged her,” continues Alison.

"Lyra was so down-to-earth and she crossed all divides in this community. Everyone she worked with took her to their heart and had only kind, glowing words to say about her as a person and nothing but praise for the brilliance of her work.”

Being universally adored is a rare achievement in Northern Ireland where tribal politics can so often force us to align ourselves with ‘orange’ or ‘green’ politics – but it seems McKee wanted to always understand things from all perspectives.

"She had this belief that we always had to have the difficult conversations, whether that be about sectarian politics, or sexuality or religion, and she believed that was how we would make progress as a society, by facing difficult issues head on, something she always did through her relationships and in her journalism.

"She always wanted to talk to those who held the polar opposite opinion to her and she wanted to always try to understand them and enage, such was her incredible gift for empathy.

"Her mum Joan always said that when she was a little girl her most recurrent question was always ‘Why? Why did that happen Mummy? Why was that man shot? Why do people behave or think like this or that?’ Her whole life was this stupendous project to understand both her own path and the opinions of those who disagreed with her.”

One subject she published widely on was intergenerational trauma and why Northern Ireland has the highest suicide rate of any other UK region; so too did she publish widely on the sectarian murder of unionist politician Robert Bradford, among innumerable other subjects; Faber & Faber have since published many of her unfinished pieces of work.

"For Lyra, her journalism was always deeply embedded right in the community and not just here in Northern Ireland. She travelled and wrote about Nicaragua and boxing in Boston; she did both national and international work.

"Lyra worked day and night. I never met anyone with a more packed social diary in my life. She found stories and stories found her.”

Millar explains that she worked with an “incredible editor” and using material from Lyra’s own dictaphone, mobile and computer the documentary allows her to tell her story in her own words – this is Lyra unalloyed in her own voice, telling the world all about her perspective on life here, on politics, on myriad subjects without any external interference.

“Lyra loved Northern Ireland but she wanted things here to be better for her generation born in 1990.”

Millar goes back to her childhood right up to the night of her death when rioting got out of hand in Londonderry, which she had only recently made her home.

The world was stunned when she was shot dead in the midst of the melee.

"Life is precious, we want to remind people of that. But we really wanted to emphasise Lyra’s philosophy that if we want to change things in Northern Ireland we need to have these difficult conversations and cannot afford to avoid this.

“There is so much here in Northern Ireland, and we do not want to go backwards, nobody wants that, and here we are at another political impasse and, again, difficult conversations need to be had,” adds Millar.

Millar hopes that viewers will be inspired by LYRA to realise that violence is not the answer, and that we might realise that it is incumbent on all of us to build a better Northern Ireland by having the difficult conversations that McKee never shied away from.

It is the least we owe Lyra, who paid the ultimate price for doing a job she loved.