Can I Give Him My Eyes?

‘I was about 10 feet away when a soldier fired the rubber bullet that struck me on the bridge of my nose. I didn’t hear the bang of the discharge. All I remember is that everything went blank. And that was the moment my life changed forever.’

Richard Moore was ten years old when he was shot by a British soldier, on his journey past an army base on his way home from school. ‘Can I Give Him My Eyes? was the question Richard’s father asked the doctors when they broke the news that they could not save his sight.

Here Richard Moore lends us his eyes as he shares his remarkable story, from his early years growing up on the Catholic working-class Creggan Estate in Derry, the second youngest of a family of twelve children. In it he describes the moment of grace that accompanied the realisation that he would never again see, where he accepted his fate instantly and without bitterness, and tells of wonderful childhood escapades, including ‘endless cycles down Malin Gardens’ guided by the voices of his friends.

Years later, in an extraordinary turn of events, Richard met and befriended the man who shot him. Can I Give Him My Eyes? is an inspiring life story of a singular man, and founder of the charity Children of Crossfire, whom the Dali Lama describes as ‘not only my friend but my hero’.