The controversy over the weekend about John Finucane attending a commemoration for deceased IRA members highlights many of the differences which exist in our community. To understand this, we need to remember that Northern Ireland was set up, maintained and continues, in the eyes of many, to be a Protestant state for a Protestant people. NI was never pro-British; it was always anti-Catholic and anti-Irish; this was its whole ‘raison d’etre’.
There is still in the Protestant/unionist community many people who can’t admit that RUC, UDR and SAS murders were of the same gravity as those of the IRA. ‘Thou shalt not kill’ didn’t apply to them. During the Troubles this was best shown in the semi-condemnation by unionist politicians of loyalist killings of Catholics. There was always a caveat: “The killing was wrong but….!”
There is also, in the Catholic tradition, the belief that when a person dies it is time to let all the old hurts and prejudices about them go. They are in the hands of God, facing judgment, as every one of us will have to do. It is not up to us to pronounce judgment on those who have gone before us. In the Catholic tradition we rightly leave all those things in the hands of the One who knows everything.
This insistence by unionist politicians and others that they can continue to judge people, even after death, is repulsive to the Catholic ethos. God alone is our judge.
The maintenance of the unionist mentality of being under threat is at the heart of unionist fears. From a unionist perspective, the uprising of ’69 was simply proof that the Catholics could never be trusted. Unionism could never, and has never, faced the fact that 50 years of religious discrimination, gerrymandering and tramping the Catholic into the ground was the root of the Troubles here.
It was apparent even to Terence O’Neill in his famous ‘Crossroads’ speech that things could not go on as they were. The hardliners, personified by Big Ian, got rid of him and everyone else who tried to make NI a more equal and better place.
Perhaps we can best sum up the Troubles, and all that has gone with it, with a reflection on history: “Unionism sowed what it reaped.”
TURLOUGH QUINN
Portglenone, Co Antrim
SF distancing self from those it must woo
Even from a unionist background, it is possible to understand how young nationalists/republicans in the 1970s might have believed that they had no alternative other than to use violence to (as they saw it) defend their community. Being angry and wanting to hit back at those who have offended or harmed is a normal emotion and one that young men in particular are prone to. It is understandable that some people respond to injustice by killing their political opponents, but it was never inevitable. We can see how the relatives of the young men who died during the Troubles don’t want their family member forgotten and we can understand why Sinn Féin feels a loyalty to those people. I would hope that nationalists/republicans would similarly try to understand how we in the unionist community (having witnessed all that we witnessed since 1998) see things from a different perspective.
Despite the electioneering tactics of the DUP, Michelle O’Neill will eventually be First Minister. Electoral politics has worked for republicans and will continue to work, there was always an alternative to violence.
We unionists find it difficult to understand how SF are not providing better leadership here. Trying to maintain the fiction that the violence of the IRA was essential or heroic is not credible, even among their own members.
I know Sinn Féin felt it could not back down once the opportunists of the DUP went for a public confrontation over this particular commemoration. The symbiotic relationship between SF and the DUP will continue to benefit both parties electorally. However, Sinn Féin (if they are serious about Irish unity) must realise that they have further distanced themselves from those sections of the community they need to woo.
Is their support for the IRA still more important than their desire for Irish unity?
ARNOLD CARTON
Belfast BT6
Sanitising sectarian slaughter
The South Armagh Volunteers Commemoration poster at the event John Finucane spoke at had an image of legendary Irish hero Cú Chulainn. Presumably it was suggesting that the bravery of those volunteers was comparable to the mythical Irish warrior.
A volunteer is someone who freely offers to take part. I don’t know if any of the volunteers who John Finucane was commemorating – that by definition also means celebrating and honouring – were involved in incidents such as Kingsmill.
Volunteering to stop men on their way home from work and voluntarily slaughtering those defenceless men is not the stuff of romanticised legend carried out by fearless Irish warriors. It is repugnant and grotesque. This Cú Chulainn imagery seems to be some form of sanitising what was essentially naked sectarian slaughter, dressed up as a Hollywood tale.
I hope Mr Finucane would agree that those who killed his father Pat, like those who killed my brother John, should not be honoured for volunteering to do so.
Anyone who used a police, army or paramilitary uniform to volunteer to criminally kill another human being should not be glorified.
Every family affected by the Troubles has a right to remember their loved ones.
Turning such remembering into a public commemoration does nothing for the reconciliation Sinn Féin wishes to promote.
All murders were wrong. All mothers’ tears are the same. Those mothers on all sides should be commemorated.
If those volunteers were alive today, older and wiser, would they feel heroic and worthy of commemoration or might they feel used by others who took advantage of their youthful vulnerability?
GEORGE LARMOUR
Belfast
Unpaid carers feel ignored
June 5 marked the beginning of Carers’ Week in which we seek to highlight the amazing care unpaid carers give to loved ones across this island and the UK.
The care given is not being properly recognised by the government. Indeed we can actually calculate that unpaid carers in the UK save the healthcare system in the region of £4.5 billion annually.
Despite this incredible saving the British government has failed time and time again to properly fund the areas needed to help our carers continue their selfless work in the home.
A recent report entitled ‘New Deal for Unpaid Carers’ was published by the Coalition of Carers organisation. The report sets out the policy changes they want to see in the areas of health and social care, welfare, housing and employment to name a few.
The Department of Health states there is no budget to address the concerns of organisations who represent our carers. This flies in the face of the money saved on an annual basis.
Carers Allowance is an insult to those in the community who receive £69.70 per week. Furthermore not every carer is entitled to this grossly inadequate amount which leaves people living on savings and family members helping them out financially.
The government needs to pay carers at the very least a living wage for the time and effort they devote to their loved ones.
KIERAN McCAUSLAND
Aontú, Upper Bann
