A lost leader

THIS book is the latest in the Republican Legends series and is a remarkable account of the life and tragic death of Sheena Campbell, truly a lost leader of the republican struggle.
Ella O’Dwyer of An Phoblacht has done an excellent job in interviewing family, friends and comrades of Sheena. These interviews give us a striking insight into the personality and the commitment of an outstanding yet ordinary young woman.
The book opens with a harrowing eye-witness account of Sheena’s murder at the hands of a unionist death squad in the York Bar near Queen’s University where she was a student in 1992. The witness was Law professor, Christine Bell. Her memoir of that terrible event is both stark and reflective.
From Sheena’s family and comrades we learn of her positive and outgoing character and her early involvement in republican politics. Growing up near the Armagh/Down border not far from the towns of Lurgan, Craigavon and Portadown she knew the reality of British repression and of sectarianism but there was not a sectarian bone in her body. She became a leading Sinn Féin activist at an early age.
During the late ‘80s and early ‘90s the unionist death squads, directed by the hidden hand of British intelligence, were targeting key Sinn Féin activists. They were assisted by political censorship and demonisation of republicans on both sides of the Border. Conservative nationalists and the Catholic hierarchy also played their part and one of the most significant facts exposed in this book is the reaction of the local Catholic bishop to Sheena’s murder.
Several interviewees, including Sheena’s son, make the point that she should not be placed on a pedestal and her ordinary humanity should always be kept in mind. Ella O’Dwyer succeeds admirably in this, while leaving no doubt that Sheena was an exemplary republican who should serve as a role model for women and men, young and old alike.