 1.1.2000 I'm sitting at a friend's kitchen in Dublin in a suburb and I'm sitting there knowing the next person who's going to come through the door is Patrick McGee, the man who planted the bomb at the Grand Hotel not far from here which killed my father and four others. I remember sitting there full of anxiety, fear, anticipation, excitement. Was he even going to turn up? Would I, after all these years from 84 to 99, from 2000, all these years when I wanted to not blame? But would I want to blame him when I saw him? Would I be angry? But more than that was a knowing that finally I was going to put a human face to the enemy, to the labels of evil terrorists, to the man who had changed my life forever and taken away my wonderful dad. I remember him walking in and I shook his hand and said, thank you for coming. And he said, no, no, no, thank you for inviting me. We were very polite. And we went into our own room, just the two of us, and that first meeting was three hours. And I remember looking at him and looking at his face and going, you killed my father, but you look so normal and thinking, what am I doing here with him? But also listening deeply to him. And he started off by sharing his political strategy of why the Brighton bomb had been a means to an end and why in his mind it had achieved it because it had given the IRA, the Catholic community, a political platform, which is what he'd wanted. And I'd actually met many men before in the IRA, I'd met hunger strikers, I'd met people in the Sinn Fein, the political wing, right back in 85, 86, I was beginning to meet people. And so I was very familiar with what he was saying. But I was also curious what lay beneath this. So I asked questions and I listened and I also shared that my experience of being in Belfast in 85, some of the incredible things that happened to me to help me to get to that point. My decision within two days of losing my father to bring something positive and to understand those that had killed him and refused to have an enemy because I believed having an enemy would take away some of my humanity. And I did have an enemy that day. And so my journey was about healing that. And I was member thinking, I've got what I want from this meeting. I can see he has some sensitivity and depth. But he is justifying killing my father. So maybe it's time to end it. I was very clear what I needed from that meeting. And just as I thought that, he stopped talking. He rubbed his eye and he looked to me and he said, I don't know who I am anymore. Can I hear your anger and your rage? Tell me more. I've never met anybody so open as you before. I remember part of me wanted to leave that room as quickly as possible because this was more than I bargained for. I knew another journey had started and part of me embraced this because I knew it was no longer about my need, it was also about his need. And he'd taken off his political hat. He arrived with a sense of righteousness and he'd taken that off and become vulnerable. And the conversation was very different after that. He was much more open and talking about his personal experiences of what happened to him to change from at 16 believing in non-violence to 18 joining the IRA. And I remember after an hour and a half I was getting hard to sustain the parts of me that were finding it challenging and I could no longer listen. I'd reached my limit and so I thanked him for coming. And he said, no, thank you and I am really sorry I killed your dad. And I said to him, I'm glad it's you and neither he nor I knew what that meant. What I think I did mean was his preparedness to open up. I was realising how much that would mean to me even back then at the first meeting. I don't think many people would have been so willing to engage emotionally. And he would later say that he was disarmed by my empathy. And if I'd gone there from a place of I'm right, you're wrong. I'm going to argue my truth which will make you wrong. He would have stayed in a very safe place of righteousness and not moved at all. I remember going home, very disorientated, like I've broken a taboo society. I've met my enemy and I've seen his humanity. And there was no support around that time and all I wanted was to carry on the conversation. So I was back within a few weeks. And since then we've been meeting over 150 times. We've spoken in different places around the world. He's taking a break now from speaking with me but we're still meeting informally. And he has become my friend. It's a very challenging friendship but he's my friend. And it's about for me creating a new story. He killed my father but he's also travelled on me to places, experienced incredible hardship and suffering and people opening up. He's become vulnerable and shared for him what it's like to now know he killed a wonderful human being. Because when he planted that bomb he didn't see anyone there. And now he knows that there was my dad there. So it's brought my dad back between us. I remember the first time we spoke in public we had two minutes to speak each. And he said, I now know I could sit down and have had a cup of tea with Joe's dad. Now the British government weren't into having cup of tea. My dad was an MP with the IRA. It wasn't something they talked about as a way of resolving conflict, having cups of tea with the enemy. But I can see the two men together having that cup of tea. And how much better would it have been if they had been having that cup of tea dialogue, conflict transformation if that had been happening? And what have I been learning all these years and what am I still learning? I still have in me that urge when I'm hurting to blame someone else that hasn't gone away. Ask my adult daughters and they'll tell you. They're great reminders of mum I thought we were no blame house. Do you need a pillow with your anger? And when the first one had a boyfriend and he hurt her I remember writing this text to her boyfriend. And it was really nasty and was meant to shame him, make him feel bad. I was voicing my head going, Joe don't send it. And I'm going shut up. I sent the text and my daughter said maybe that wasn't a good idea. And when he arrived the first thing I said was I'm really sorry I sent that text. It came from a part of me that wanted to make you feel bad and I'm really sorry. I don't think he'd ever had an adult talking like that before. But going back to the need to blame it's there. You know any moment we can demonise others and a moment we can make someone else responsible. And for me this is about learning. I can't control what happened to me. I did not choose for my dad to be killed that way. But I have total choice with how I respond. And the amount I've been hurt I believe now has been transformed into my capacity for empathy. And I choose the word empathy rather than forgiveness. Because I think empathy leads to positive change. When I empathise with other people then I'm going to want for them all that I want for my loved ones. So empathy for me is about action. And when I've really listened to Patrick I reach a place of knowing if I'd lived his life I may have made the same choices I don't know. And in that moment there is no other. And this idea that we are given that we have another the enemy to me is a complete myth. I am accused of betraying my father sometimes. I've gone deeply into what is betrayal. And for me there's only one betrayal and that's the betrayal in my heart. Which sees the whole human family as our brothers and sisters. And as long as there are people hurting in different parts of the world in our communities I believe it affects all of us. And for me the way forward is empathy. At a workshop very early on in 2000 there was a man there who'd been in the British Army a man there who'd been in the lawless paramilitary and Patrick McGee. I was just watching them listening and they'd all shared their stories that day. And I realised that I could be all of their sister, their daughter, their mother, them. But it's so easy to believe that one side is more right than the other. At any moment I feel emotionally pulled towards feeling that these people are right, these people are wrong. So for me my daily discipline, my daily focus is to see the humanity in everyone and work with my emotions that make me want to side in one more than the other. And as I'm standing here very close to where my dad was killed I'm actually going to want to bring Patrick McGee here and thank him for what he's been teaching me. I didn't meet him to change him. I met him to change myself because that is the only part I can change. When I was in my early 20s before my father was killed I wanted to learn about non-violence and peace. That was my goal, my ambition for my life. And I was sitting in a hut in Himalayas learning about Gandhi. But actually, healing the effects of the bomb, learning to understand why someone would choose to kill my father has given me great insights and understanding into my own process and given me ways into hearing other people's stories from around the world. And there's no greater privilege to be able to hear what other people are going through. I take that very seriously whenever anyone shares and I think that's the gift we can give to each other. In these hard challenging times is to hear each other's stories and then also to reach out and hear the story of the person we find the hardest to listen to. Thank you for listening.