Veronica Guerin

Veronica Guerin 

In almost a week, it will be the anniversary of the assassination of someone who stood for truth and justice in the face of greed, injustice and apathy. I had not even heard of the journalist Veronica Guerin before seeing the title on a VCD in the local VideoEzy - and I picked it up because it also had Cate Blanchett's name plastered across it. But I am not sorry I did, because now I know that this woman paid with her life to change the sordid conditions she saw around her.

In 1996, this fearless young woman (she was only 37)was shot six times when she stopped at a traffic light on her way home. She had been previously assaulted by the man who put out the order to murder her, but despite that she had continued to write her exposes of Ireland's leading underworld figures and drug barons. There's an article here which gives more details.

To some extent her death was not in vain as now the law books have changed to make it more difficult for criminals to hide the source of their often ludicrously high income. And the National Union of Journalists and other media associations came up with The Guerin Principles.

At the end of the film it stated that in the 6 years since her death (now it's 8), 196 journalists had died in the course of their vocation. The conflict in Iraq must have pushed that figure up by quite a bit, I imagine.