Doorstep Shootings Part II: Tunnel Vision Stray Bullets

In this episode I am focusing on two Troubles' murders, those of RUC Sgt Hugh Brendan McCormac and Pat Finucane. Both men were slaughtered in front of their wives and young children. While this episode concludes the theme of 'Doorstep Murders' I felt that these two cases - from the thousands murdered during the Troubles - demonstrated how the killers thought nothing of murdering their victims in very close proximity to the respective families.

I do go digress here and there, but I sincerely hope I am able to adequately convey my thoughts without exhausting your patience.

I was also minded of, but didn't have time to include in the episode, the following poem by Michael Longley...

The Civil Servant

He was preparing an Ulster fry for breakfast
When someone walked into the kitchen and shot him:
A bullet entered his mouth and pierced his skull,
The books he had read, the music he could play.

Hlay in his dressing gown and pyjamas
While they dusted the dresser for fingerprints
And then shuffled backwards across the garden
With notebooks, cameras and measuring tapes.

They rolled him up like a red carpet and left
Only a bullet hole in the cutlery drawer
Later his widow took a hammer and chisel
And removed the black keys from his piano.