Lise Hand, friend of journalist Veronica Guerin, said her death stopped people in their tracks because not only was she a well-known journalist who was “massively well liked” but she was a wife, a mother and a young woman who had been “executed in broad daylight on a sunny day on a busy road”.<\/p>\n
The day Ms Guerin died began as a normal day in the Sunday Independent newsroom, she said.<\/p>\n
Ms Guerin was going to Naas to the District Court to deal with summons for speeding fines.<\/p>\n
“She was genuinely afraid that her car was going to be taken off the road because Veronica worked in her car, it was her office, her mobile office,” Ms Hand said.<\/p>\n
On her way back to the office, the journalist called the newsdesk and asked to speak to Ms Hand.<\/p>\n
She said: “We arranged to meet for coffee, so I went out for lunch, turned my phone off.<\/p>\n
“I suppose in an irony I was coming back to the office … hurrying back to the office to meet her about an hour-and-a-half later.<\/p>\n
“I see the newsstand at the corner of the GPO arcade and Henry Street, which led to the backdoor of the Independent newspapers building and I see a crowd around the newsstand.”<\/p>\n
Initially, Ms Hand said she was amused as it was the type of thing one sees at moon landings or the outbreak of war.<\/p>\n
Then, she said she saw the headline of the late edition of the Herald: “Veronica Guerin shot dead.”<\/p>\n
“To be honest, I didn’t believe it,” she said.<\/p>\n
“But as soon as I walked into the newsroom, I knew that it was the truth,” she added.<\/p>\n
Lisa Hand speaks about the death of her friend, Veronica Guerin<\/p>\n