I was struck by Michael D Higgins’ interview with the BBC’s Fergal Keane: He said he could not ask the families of victims to put the past behind them. Society could not afford to wipe out the memory of violence, he said. “I think that there is very significant work to do,” he said. “Affecting a kind of amnesia is of no value to you. You are better to honestly deal with the facts that are standing behind you as …
Riffing of Kevin Cullen of the Boston Globe, Seamus comes up with an argument you sense has been much talked about under wraps but which no one has the political strength (rather than confidence) to ask for: The only legitimate way to end yet more years of speculation and anguish for the McConville family is for the governments of Ireland and Britain to agree a general amnesty that will allow all participants to the conflict, willing or otherwise, to give …
Billy Hutchinson’s explanation for his sectarian murders has been covered below by David McCann. Unfortunately they degenerate into concepts like “Truth recovery”, “ethnic thematics” and such like. The News Letter have provided somewhat more direct responses. From the News Letter: Kenny Donaldson of Innocent Victims United said that Mr Hutchinson’s attempted justification of his murders “bore all the hallmarks of the same sick delusional thinking that is prevalent within the republican movement”. Referring to the UVF slogan ‘For God and …
Declan Kearney’s blog over at the BelTel on the Secretary of State’s 7th March speech is worth highlighting for a number of reasons. One, it comes a full seven days after the Villiers speech. And two the argument begins with an odd reference to ‘narrative’: By setting out the primacy of a single narrative, and rejecting the use of immunity as one instrument to assist in dealing with the past, the British Government has come out against the Haass compromises. …
Alan has a post on the Alternative Ms. Ulster event hosted by Steven Agnew at Stormont on Sunday complete with the inspiring / daring / indecent, speech/ behaviour by Ms. Park. In contrast yesterday the UUP, SDLP and TUV hosted the third annual day of remembrance for victims of terrorism. 120 people attended and three people spoke: Michelle Nixon who has been caring for her brother since he was seriously injured in 1979 by an IRA bomb in Rosslea; June …
The Commission for Victims and Survivors (CVS) convened a conference “to listen to as many voices as possible” in forming its advice to the Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister, the CVS Commissioner Kathryn Stone explained. The event was well attended by a couple hundred delegates, representing the broad spectrum from Northern Ireland’s Troubles; but remarkably absent were politicians. https://soundcloud.com/mrulster/20140225-cvs-01-kathryn-stone?in=mrulster/sets/20140225-cvs-conference Commissioner Stone quoted the Haass-O’Sullivan published draft document, in regards to the leadership role demonstrated to date …
By Luke Moffett and Kieran McEvoy INTRODUCTION There has been much said about victims in recent months in Northern Ireland, particularly in relation to the Haass negotiations on flags, parades, and dealing with the past. Perhaps the phrase most used is that any process to deal with the past in Northern Ireland has to be ‘victim-centred’. Although the view that the process should be ‘victim-centred’ is laudable, there has been little said as to what this will mean in practice. …
Sam McBride from the News Letter has a series of articles interviewing Kathyrn Stone the relatively new victims’ commissioner in which she has expressed views likely to undermine her role as a spokesperson for victims. Stone’s problems seem to come from refusing to state an opinion on some of the most basic of issues relating to victims. Ms Stone declined to say whether the IRA, which killed 1,706 people, or the UVF, which killed 430, were terrorists. When asked whether, …
Welcome news… “As part of this review, we have identified a group of 22 young people who may be at risk from child sexual exploitation and are seeking to identify those who may have committed crimes against them.” Identifying victims is not the same as prosecution, and it certainly does not mean that for the victims themselves their ordeal is over. This File On 4 programme broadcast earlier this year gave a harrowing account of some of those experiences from the …
So, no further inquiry into Omagh. And at least some of the secrets of the cover up on Bloody Sunday, goes to the grave. Regarding those who can still answer for their actions, it’s all “I cannot remember,” “I do not recall,” “I have only a very vague memory.” For others, it’s all “Republican code of honour”. Publishing their new report on Northern Ireland, John Dalhuisen, Amnesty’s International director for Europe and Central Asia said: “There’s a cruel irony in …
“There must be ghosts all over the country. They lie thick as grains of sand. And we’re all so horribly afraid of the light.” – Henrik Ibsen (1881) So the past is a foreign place after all. Nowhere more-so than in Northern Ireland. The decision to ‘plant’ the G8 in Northern Ireland is testimony to the degree which things have calmed down in the twenty years since the ceasefires. Still, we remain a battleground of sorts. There’s a steady stream …
Just came across this this evening towards the end of the week. It’s from Newsline, on Tuesday, I think… It’s only short, but just about here Alasdair McDonnell says something well worth noting at least… Victims have been for fifteen years promised truth, promised solutions, promised reconciliation, promised hope and are not getting closure. Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a …
With all due apologies to students of quantum physics out there, Brian Feeney’s ‘poetic’ use of the Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle in today’s Irish News (£) to explain the SDLP’s apparent confusion over the last fortnight is too good to resist: The principle suggests that the closer you get to establishing the position of a particle the harder it is to work out the speed of its movement [or rather its momentum – Ed]. Conversely the closer you get to working …
So, just a quick tidy up on the outstanding issues around the SpAdBill, namely employment rights. Daithi McKay, who has played point on this issue over the last year or two has suggested that: “Members of staff could potentially lose their jobs, and that is not what we should be legislating for in the chamber, in the Assembly. We should be legislating for jobs, not taking away jobs.” As it happens, the narrow terms of the bill will only have …
Never one to pull his punches, in today’s Irish News Newton Emerson gets down to asking an important question of Relatives for Justice, the director of which Mark Thompson has written: The bill is a direct consequence of the failure to independently deal with the past in an inclusive and holistic way and as such should not be progressed in isolation to a wider process of inclusive truth recovery. Ideally this issue should be the opportunity to now convene meaningful …
It’s hard to disagree with Brian when he says there is no real serious attempt to deal with the past. On the Republican side, the understanding is that that is not possible until everything is dealt with. But in the meantime some families have been trying to use the mechanisms of the state to try and get closer to the truth of what happened to their loved ones. As John noted here on Slugger, the re-opening of an inquest into …
Ann Travers talks to Wendy Austin earlier on Talkback on the SDLP’s petition of concern that will finally kill the Civil Service (Special Advisers) Bill. I’ll try and get a better quality recording as and when it becomes available, since for a number of reasons, I think this is an important interview. I’m going to refrain from detailed comment on this though – as you might guess having written a long profile of the political, opposed to the legislative, arguments …
There has been a lot of words written/spoken etc on the issue of Eibhlin Glenholmes (once ‘Britain’s most wanted woman’) being appointed to a panel hand picked by all three of the three Victims Commissioners. Stephen Nolan decided to lance the boil last night, even though as two of panelists pointed out we did not know who else was to sit on the the victims panel. There’s a couple of things to say about this. One, why appoint a set of Victims …
This exchange from Hearts and Minds last night has two, what I’d call, very very weird moments. One is when Mike Nesbitt tells Noel Thompson to ‘go and talk to his producer’ about the conditions under which he has agreed to do the interviewer. And two is really just the way he stumps Declan Kearney (who holds only a party office in Sinn Fein). This comes at the end of repeated attempts by Nesbitt to get Kearney to start the …
The News Letter yesterday had an article quoting (and interviewing Ian Bothwell of the Crossfire Trust in Darkley). He suggests that some Republicans he has spoken to are “seeking forgiveness for their past.” From the News letter: He says he knows several former IRA members who would like closure on the deeds they have committed in the past. “We are talking about a number of republicans who have engaged in front-line activity,” he told the News Letter. “They would like …
