{"id":277533,"date":"2026-01-10T10:56:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T10:56:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/277533\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T10:56:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T10:56:07","slug":"american-shot-dead-by-ice-agent-remembered-for-formative-years-in-northern-ireland-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/277533\/","title":{"rendered":"American shot dead by Ice agent remembered for \u2018formative years\u2019 in Northern Ireland \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ren\u00e9e Nicole Good, the US<\/a> citizen shot and killed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement<\/a> (Ice) this week, has been described as a \u201cyoung woman who fell in love with Ireland\u201d and who \u201ctouched a lot of people\u2019s lives\u201d during her summers in Northern Ireland<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Paul Bowman, a youth worker who knew her, said Ms Good \u2013 then Ms Ganger \u2013 was quiet and \u201ccompassionate and caring\u201d, with a \u201cgood sense of humour\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cShe really enjoyed literature and the arts, she wanted to pursue writing and she did, she won awards for it, for writing, for poetry,\u201d he said. \u201cI played music with her, she had a good voice … as I think of her, those are the things I think of.\u201d <\/p>\n

Ms Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was killed by an Ice officer in disputed circumstances in Minneapolis on Wednesday. <\/p>\n

The Trump<\/a> administration claimed Ms Good, who was shot multiple times as she drove away from a group of officers, was a \u201cdomestic terrorist\u201d who sought to attack them with her vehicle. <\/p>\n

This has been rejected by state and local officials and protesters. The mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, said video recordings demonstrated the suggestion the officers had acted in self-defence was \u201cgarbage\u201d. <\/p>\n

\"FederalFederal agents stand guard as protestors gather after a federal agent shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good. Photograph: Getty <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Who was Renee Nicole Good, the woman killed by an Ice agent?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Originally from Colorado Springs, Colorado, from the age of 14 or 15 Ms Good took part in Christian youth missions to Northern Ireland organised by the Presbyterian Church. <\/p>\n

She spent successive summers from 2002 to 2006 in the Ballysally area of Coleraine, Co Derry<\/a>, and Saintfield, Co Down<\/a>, and on her final visit chose to extend her trip from two to eight weeks. <\/p>\n

\u201cShe grew up during those years,\u201d said Mr Bowman. \u201cThose are the formative teenage years, and over that period of time she developed lots of enduring friendships with her Northern Irish peers.<\/p>\n

\u201cRen\u00e9e touched a lot of people\u2019s lives while she was here, and being here, her life was touched and impacted as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think she fell in love with the place, she had those friendships with folk here, and those mattered to her. She mattered to them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The former minister of First Saintfield Presbyterian Church, Reverend James Hyndman, remembered Ms Good as \u201ca lovely, kind, compassionate, quiet, creative girl, just a lovely, lovely girl\u201d who had had a \u201chuge impact.\u201d<\/p>\n

Describing her \u201cconnection with nature\u201d, he said she \u201cloved Ireland, loved the north coast, loved the whole culture of Northern Ireland. That\u2019s what kept bringing her back, year after year.\u201d <\/p>\n

Rev Hyndman said it was \u201creally distressing and devastating to hear of her death. It feels surreal, I just can\u2019t get my head around it at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur hearts and prayers are with her whole family, I just can\u2019t imagine how they are coping at the minute, it\u2019s just horrendous.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cFolks who remember Ren\u00e9e have been in touch and we\u2019re all the same. It\u2019s just unbelievable,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019d like to express our deep sorrow and sympathy for her family.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Bowman said that while losing anyone was tragic, the \u201cvisceral and horrific\u201d way in which the incident occurred was difficult to process. <\/p>\n

\u201cI made the mistake of reading some of the comments in some of these reports and articles and that\u2019s brutal to see.\u201d<\/p>\n

Emphasising that he was not American and \u201cso I have no business and no right to comment on American politics\u201d, he said: \u201cAll I can speak to is the person I knew and I don\u2019t recognise the person that\u2019s been talked about today, demonised, in a way.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just sad to see her humanity kind of lost in all of this, and if I had one wish it would just be that people could have some empathy and some understanding and compassion towards a young woman, a whole life still ahead of her, and all of that [has been] snatched away.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I think of Ren\u00e9e, as I think of the young woman who fell in love with Ireland, and kept coming here and has friendships here, the person that she was becoming, she wouldn\u2019t be the person who would want violence in the streets in her name.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ren\u00e9e Nicole Good, the US citizen shot and killed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) this week, has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277534,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,955,356,17927,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,954,7,8,384,107,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-277533","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-derry","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-down","13":"tag-featured-news","14":"tag-featurednews","15":"tag-headlines","16":"tag-latest-news","17":"tag-latestnews","18":"tag-main-news","19":"tag-mainnews","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-northern-ireland","22":"tag-top-stories","23":"tag-topstories","24":"tag-united-states","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-world","27":"tag-world-news","28":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115870445260443112","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}