On a day when violent men grabbed centre-stage in Northern Ireland it was good that the voice of the victims did not go unheard.
Observe Rita Restorick: she does not shoot, neither does she bomb, but her frail voice and simple words carried a powerful message in Derry yesterday.
Mother of the British soldier, Stephen Restorick, who was killed by an IRA sniper's bullet, she was invited by Senator Ted Kennedy to share a peace platform with him at the Guildhall.
Another guest speaker was Michael McGoldrick, father of the taxi-driver of the same name who was killed by loyalist paramilitaries during the Drumcree stand-off in 1996.
All three had lost family members to the men of violence. Senator Kennedy's story is well known, Mrs Restorick and Mr McGold rick had come to tell theirs.
It was a powerful reminder that what we like to call the Troubles are essentially about people losing their lives. The two guest speakers were ordinary people who had to come to terms with a terrible tragedy.
Mrs Restorick spoke of the "heartache" of her son's death which "made me re-evaluate my life". All mothers of victims will identify with what she said: "The pain I felt after Stephen's death was as bad as the pain I felt giving birth to him."
She said she had gone through the names of all those who lost their lives in the conflict and discovered that 45 of them were called Stephen. She read a poem by one, also a soldier, who was killed by a landmine a few miles from where she stood. He had left the verses in an envelope, to be read in the event of his death.
Rita Restorick is neither bitter nor vengeful. She believes in the peace process: "People have to talk, and try to find a solution." The audience, including Sinn Fein representatives, gave her a standing ovation.
Michael McGoldrick, father of the murdered taxi-driver, said that after listening to her he could safely declare: "Rita, I know how you feel." He spoke of the day the news filtered through that his son was dead. His world fell apart and he said to his wife: "We will never even smile again." Then there was the funeral: "I placed my two hands on my son and I said, `Son, I will see you in heaven'."
He threw himself into charity work for children in eastern Europe, especially the victims of Chernobyl. Speaking of the great work done by both sides in the North, he said: "We are so good to people we don't even see and yet there are people two streets away that we don't even speak to." Mr McGoldrick has found consolation in a strong religious faith.
Senator Kennedy led the applause as the speaker asked why political leaders could not sit down and talk about "something so important as peace". He closed on a Christian note: "Love one another. That's my message to you."
The senator, whose sister Mrs Jean Kennedy Smith, the US Ambassador to Ireland, was among the audience, thanked his guests for "sharing the anguish and the love that is in your heart" His own message was more political but no less urgent. "We stand at a defining moment in the modern epic of this island," he said.
To nationalists he said: "Look how far you've come." His message to unionists was: your ancestors were pioneers who helped build America, now you can be pioneers for a better future back home.
But he struck a personal note as well, including an extraordinary quote from a letter his father wrote after the death of his children, Joe and Kathleen, but before John and Robert were killed.
Seeking to console a friend whose son had died, the elder Kennedy wrote: "When one of your children goes out of your life, you think of what he might have done with a few more years and you wonder what you are going to do with the rest of yours. Then one day, because there is a world to be lived in, you find yourself a part of it again, trying to accomplish something, something that he did not have time enough to do."
Senator Kennedy spoke for many mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters when he said: "Too many lives of too many sons and daughters of this land have been cut short. We must dedicate ourselves to accomplish for them what many `did not have time enough to do', a lasting peace for Northern Ireland."
Among those present were Cardinal Cahal Daly and Dr Edward Daly, the North's Agriculture and Environment Minister, Lord Dubs, Mr John Hume MP MEP, Senator Maurice Hayes, poet and Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney and playwright Brian Friel. Later the senator prayed with his wife, Vicky, at the Bloody Sunday memorial in the Bogside and spoke to relatives of the victims.
He also had meetings with the Church of Ireland Bishop of Derry and Raphoe, Dr Mehaffey, and later with Mr Gregory Campbell and Mr William Hay of the Democratic Unionist Party. He concluded his engagements with a visit to the Maydown Ebrington industrial training centre in the mainly Protestant Waterside district of the city. Mr Kennedy was on his first visit to Northern Ireland.