Editorial: The generosity of many victims of IRA terrorism

As Northern Ireland has progressed through the 50th anniversary of the bleakest years of the Troubles, the early 1970s, there have been numerous half century commemorations.

We had the 50th of the murder of three Scottish soldiers, of the Ballymurphy killings, of Bloody Sunday, of the little know bomb at the News Letter in which seven people died, of Bloody Friday, of Claudy, now of the Coleraine bomb.

Most anniversaries of IRA massacres have been low key. The terror group murdered by far the largest number of Troubles dead, and yet victims of their violence tend not to organise. It is one of many reasons that legacy investigations have been so lop-sided. The number of groups who specifically represent victims of terror is small, and there is little of the activism there is among groups that scrutinise state violence from that time. In a way this reflects a generosity and forgiveness around survivors and relatives of victims of terror. It is maybe a template for a society that looks forward more than back. At the same time, it means that reprehensible things pass without comment. In 2018 when a Sinn Fein mayor insisted on attending the then 45th Coleraine anniversary some victims reportedly did not attend. Imagine the insensitivity of insisting on going to a memorial to a massacre you ‘regret’ but won’t condemn, even if it upsets victims so much they won’t go. This is the SF line on such past violence, such as the SF candidate who regretted the shooting dead of the lawyer Edgar Graham but who when pressed refused to use the word condemn.

There would be outcry if a blunt Parachute Regiment supporter, who refused to condemn Bloody Sunday, attended a Bloody Sunday memorial. Yet when such a situation happened yesterday, an SF politician at the Coleraine service, it was met with dignity and politeness.