#BREAKING: Woman killed after shots fired during violent riots in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, police treating attack as “terrorist incident” - Sky News

— ELINT News (@ELINTNews) April 18, 2019

Lyra Catherine McKee (31 March 1990 – 18 April 2019[1]) was a Northern Irish journalist.[2] She was an editor for Mediagazer, and had written for The Atlantic and BuzzFeed News. On 18 April 2019 she was shot dead during rioting in the Creggan area of Derry, County Londonderry.

McKee first came to public attention in 2014, with the publication of a blog post titled "Letter to my 14-year-old self" in which she described the challenges of growing up gay in Belfast; it was subsequently made into a short film.[6] McKee's work as a journalist included a number of pieces that appeared in both domestic and international media.[7] Among these were articles she wrote for The Atlantic,[8] The Belfast Telegraph, Private Eye and BuzzFeed News; she was also an editor for Mediagazer.[2][3] In 2016 Forbes magazine named her as one of its "30 under 30 in media" because of her work as an investigative reporter.[7]

Her first book, a non-fiction work titled Angels with Blue Faces, was published in 2018, and deals with the Provisional IRA killing of Belfast MP Robert Bradford. McKee sought crowdfunding to finance its publication.[3] She subsequently signed a two-book deal with Faber and Faber.[7] At the time of her death, her second book, The Lost Boys, was scheduled for release in 2020.[9] It concerns the disappearances of Thomas Spence and John Rodgers from Belfast's Falls Road in November 1974. Faber and Faber had compared the work to that of Anna Funder's Stasiland and Andy O'Hagan's The Missing.[7]

McKee wrote on the consequences of the Troubles. She notably wrote "Suicide of the Ceasefire Babies", an article on teenage suicides linked to the conflict.[10][11] At the time of her death, McKee was researching unsolved killings during The Troubles in Northern Ireland of the late 20th century.[1]
On 18 April 2019 McKee was shot dead during rioting in the Creggan area of Derry, County Londonderry.[13][14] Police blamed dissident republicans for her death.[15][16][17] Mobile phone footage and police CCTV footage[18] shows a masked gunman, believed to be a member of the New IRA, opening fire with a handgun.[16] In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, police took her to Altnagelvin Hospital in an armoured police Land Rover, where she later died.[16]

Prime Minister of the UK, Theresa May called the murder "shocking and senseless". She said McKee "died doing her job with great courage".[16] Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said "our solidarity also goes out to the people of Derry and to the entire journalism community. We cannot allow those who want to propagate violence, fear and hate to drag us back to the past."[16]

The leaders of Northern Ireland's main political parties, the DUP, Sinn Féin, UUP, SDLP, Alliance Party and Green Party, released a joint statement condemning the killing of McKee and described it as "an attack on all the people of this community, an attack on the peace and democratic processes". They also said that it was a "pointless and futile act to destroy the progress made over the last 20 years, which has the overwhelming support of people everywhere". They further reiterated their support for the Police Service of Northern Ireland, who were the intended targets of the gun attack.