Peace Foundation overwhelmed by public response to Mother's Day

WARRINGTON’S pioneering Peace Foundation has been overwhelmed by the public response following the screening of “Mother’s Day” on BBC2.

The factual drama which tells the story of two mothers following the IRA bomb attack on Warrington which claimed the lives of Tim Parry and Johnathan Ball, was the Peace Foundation’s biggest ever event trending at number two in the UK on Twitter.

Foundation Chief Executive Nick Taylor said: “The Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Peace Foundation is overwhelmed at the reaction to the BBC drama, Mother’s Day screened on Monday evening. Thousands of messages of support have been posted on social media and sent to the Peace Centre.

“We always knew from the moment this production was talked about, that it would be hard hitting, but ultimately would tell a story about the families and a town coming out of a tragedy and building a sense of hope and making a real difference.

“The names of Tim and Johnathan are known across the world and their legacy lives on. Mother’s Day also showed how Warrington came together, at first with some anger and confusion, but quickly leading to a search for reconciliation and peace. It was Warrington that reached out to other communities across the world, and has for 25 years led work towards peace.

“From the comments on social media, I know many people had very strong emotions during the transmission but I hope they ultimately felt proud of the town, its people and will continue to support the Peace Foundation and Peace Centre as our work continues.”

Meanwhile warrington-worldwide Editor Gary Skentelbery is taking part in his first ever 10k event at the English Half Marathon on Sunday, September 16, helping raise funds for the Peace Foundation.

“I only started running in January this year for the first time in my adult life having shed three stones in the past 18 months as part of a fitness drive.”

To sponsor Gary and support the Peace Foundation CLICK HERE

Mother’s Day – a must watch factual drama about the Warrington bombing

Darren on 5th September 2018 9:49 am 9:49 am

Warrington is my home town, I now live away from Warrington in Ludlow, however when ever the peace process in Ireland is mentioned I always feel very proud of my home town for starting the process.

Peace in Northern Ireland took years to achieve, at times people never thought it would be achieved, but the killing of these two innocent children in Warrington started the ball rolling, and also the will of the Irish people was phenomenal. I knew the peace process started after the Warrington bombings but I didn’t realise until watching Mother’s Day how much the Irish community got behind the peace process – and wanted to show the world that Ireland is not all about blowing each other up, and instead of carrying on they decided to be finally grown up about it and start to sort things out in a peaceful manner.

Since the peace started there has been so many major achievements in Ireland, and even now with Brexit looming we have both Europe and the UK government stating it’s vital that despite Brexit and EU rules it’s vital that borders remain open in Ireland. Which ultimately has given the Irish quite a lot of bargaining power as to how we exit the EU, however had Ireland never gone down the route of peace the Brexit negotiations regarding Ireland could have been taking a very different route.

During the troubles I had never visited Ireland, later on in 2008 I visited the scout Irish Jamboree at Punchestown – the Irish Jamboree was done as a celebration for Ireland because prior to the Irish Jamboree in 2008 there had been two different scout organisations in Ireland, one Catholic and one Protestant, that Irish Jamboree was also the start of a new scout association in Ireland called Scouting Ireland which was a combination of both Catholic and Protestant scout associations working together. I couldn’t help but think at the time that this achievement probably all came about by the peace process.

I was watching Mother’s Day though and when I saw the point when Sue McHugh visited Northern Ireland when she was trying to get the peace process going, it was quite a surprise to me to see it when she crossed over to Northern Ireland. When she first arrived in Northern Ireland it looked like some of the pictures you see on the news of places like Syria. At the time of the bombings I was still at school, and I didn’t realise that anywhere so close to us could be like that with soldiers walking the streets.

1 Comment

Darren on 5th September 2018 9:49 am 9:49 am

Warrington is my home town, I now live away from Warrington in Ludlow, however when ever the peace process in Ireland is mentioned I always feel very proud of my home town for starting the process.

Peace in Northern Ireland took years to achieve, at times people never thought it would be achieved, but the killing of these two innocent children in Warrington started the ball rolling, and also the will of the Irish people was phenomenal. I knew the peace process started after the Warrington bombings but I didn’t realise until watching Mother’s Day how much the Irish community got behind the peace process – and wanted to show the world that Ireland is not all about blowing each other up, and instead of carrying on they decided to be finally grown up about it and start to sort things out in a peaceful manner.

Since the peace started there has been so many major achievements in Ireland, and even now with Brexit looming we have both Europe and the UK government stating it’s vital that despite Brexit and EU rules it’s vital that borders remain open in Ireland. Which ultimately has given the Irish quite a lot of bargaining power as to how we exit the EU, however had Ireland never gone down the route of peace the Brexit negotiations regarding Ireland could have been taking a very different route.

During the troubles I had never visited Ireland, later on in 2008 I visited the scout Irish Jamboree at Punchestown – the Irish Jamboree was done as a celebration for Ireland because prior to the Irish Jamboree in 2008 there had been two different scout organisations in Ireland, one Catholic and one Protestant, that Irish Jamboree was also the start of a new scout association in Ireland called Scouting Ireland which was a combination of both Catholic and Protestant scout associations working together. I couldn’t help but think at the time that this achievement probably all came about by the peace process.

I was watching Mother’s Day though and when I saw the point when Sue McHugh visited Northern Ireland when she was trying to get the peace process going, it was quite a surprise to me to see it when she crossed over to Northern Ireland. When she first arrived in Northern Ireland it looked like some of the pictures you see on the news of places like Syria. At the time of the bombings I was still at school, and I didn’t realise that anywhere so close to us could be like that with soldiers walking the streets.