10 July, 2021 01:00
Frances McAllister pictured on the left holding a banner for the Belfast Relatives Action Committee, formed to campaign on behalf of republican prisoners
MY sister Frances was born on April 14 1956. She was a middle child in a family of 13 children.
Three of us died shortly after they were born. Sixty years later, on June 13 this year, Frances died after a short illness.
Sibling grief is a very special grief. Brothers and sisters usually know each other for the whole of their lives.
So during these sad days, Margaret and Paddy and Anne and Seán and Maura and Deirdre and Dominic and me are reflecting, no doubt, in our own ways on childhood memories and all the good times and bad times of lives bound up together.