THE FUNERAL of a young man with learning difficulties believed abducted, murdered and secretly buried by the IRA has taken place 37 years after his killing.
Brothers and sisters of Peter Wilson (21) gathered in Holy Cross Church, Ardoyne yesterday for his Requiem Mass following the discovery of his body on a beach at a Glens of Antrim beauty spot last month.
Also present at the funeral were relatives of some of the other so-called “disappeared”, along with political representatives including Sinn Féin minister Gerry Kelly and SDLP Assembly members Alban Maginness and Dominic Bradley.
The cortege was delayed a little on its way to the north Belfast church as the hearse was stuck in heavy snow and had to be pushed.
Ardoyne parish priest Fr Gary Donegan said Mr Wilson’s murder was “senseless and cruel” as was the delay of 37 years between his kidnapping and the discovery of his remains at Waterfoot beach in early November following a tip-off from reliable republican sources.
Addressing the Wilson family directly, Fr Donegan said: “In the wake house there was that sense that so much had taken place in your lives in the intervening years, that what is happening now seems like a dream. It is like it is happening to someone else, and yet here was your Peter, your brother, home again.” He said the family was finally able to plan a normal Christian burial despite the delay of nearly four decades. This right had been cruelly taken from the Wilsons by a “sinful act, compounded by injustice”.
Fr Donegan referred to the discovery of the unmarked grave on Waterfoot beach, the spot where his family later spent their summer holidays – unaware that the remains of their abducted brother lay there. The priest referred to Peter Wilson’s learning difficulties and his education both in his native west Belfast and in the north of the city where he had gone for special tuition.
Peter, he added, was innocent and “forever young”. He was a 21-year-old with the intellect of a young teenager with a Beatles haircut and a love of the music of The Who and of Western movies.
“Peter’s story is also a story of loyalty and integrity, of a never forgotten love of a devoted family whose home was steeped in Gospel values,” he said. His murder was senseless and cruel, he said.
Mr Wilson’s body was taken for burial at Milltown Cemetery off the Falls Road where he was laid alongside his deceased parents Elizabeth and Henry.
He was the ninth of an estimated 15 victims who were secretly killed and their bodies disposed off by republicans during the Troubles. Mr Wilson’s body was found by archaeologists, forensics and other policing experts brought in by the group formed by the British and Irish governments to help recover the remains of the disappeared.