The father of a young girl killed in the 1972 Claudy bombing has made a passionate appeal to the IRA to admit its role in the atrocity and apologise to families of the nine victims.
Billy Eakin's was responding to the Provisionals' admission that they murdered Derry schoolgirl Kathleen Feeney (14) near her Brandywell home in 1973.
His daughter Kathryn was just nine when she was killed by a no-warning IRA bomb in the Co Derry village of Claudy on the morning of Operation Motorman on July 31 1972.
Despite denying the Kathleen's murder for the last 32 years, the IRA issued a statement in a shock move yesterday confirming it was in fact responsible.
The organisation said it had agreed to issue a statement after being asked by the Feeney family to acknowledge its members shot the 14-year-old.
Billy Eakin last night urged the Provisionals to do the same for the families of the Claudy bombing.
Two years ago, the Derry city brigade of the IRA issued a statement denying any involvement in the atrocity.
However, it is widely believed the organisation's south Derry brigade was responsible.
Mr Eakin told The Irish News he longed for the day when the IRA would admit its role in the bombing which claimed his daughter's life.
Kathryn had been cleaning the window of her father's Main Street shop when three bombs ripped through the village, killing six people almost immediately. A further three died in the following days.
"The IRA did the damage in Claudy... An apology would be a help and a clearance. I knew all along they were guilty," Mr Eakin said.
The Co Derry man said he was pleased for the Feeney family and believed an admission of guilt and apology for the Claudy families would also help bring closure to their suffering.
He said he knew the names of some of the IRA figures responsible – in what he saw as a disastrous attempt to draw the British army away from Operation Motorman in Derry city's Bogside – but he did not have enough proof to bring them to justice.
Mr Eakin said he still thought about Kathryn and felt pain about her death every day.
"It (an apology) would definitely mean a lot to the Claudy families," he said.
"I would like to see some boys landed in jail and kept there for life."
However, he was not confident that the IRA would help the Claudy families.
"Knowing their stance, they won't come out from under the shadows until somebody pulls them out. But I would love to get an apology, it might help," he said.
"Why should I suffer?"
