A Tangled Web

St Alban



I see Alban Maginness has called upon the IRA to admit its campaign over thirty years was wrong. Let's forget for one moment that 'sorry' is the easiest word in the English language to say, and that in most cases it carries absolutely no sincerity. What earthly good would 'sorry' be to any of the relatives of lost loved ones? I can't really see IRA victims who've had to swallow the insult of prisoner releases - coupled with Sinn Fein's political endorsement by the irritant that is the nationalist minority - being flabbergasted by any form of words from a group which has a mastery of schmaltz and spin.



Furthermore, I find it a bit rich for any member of constitutional nationalism to call upon the IRA to admit the error of its ways. We must never forget that the SDLP hung on the coattails of IRA atrocities for thirty years: it accepted without question governmental initiatives brought about by the IRA's campaign. In other words, the SDLP gladly hoovered-up concessions created by violence and then went on to ask for more. The only difference with the Hume-Adams initiative of the late 1980's was the open nature of political collaboration between the two parties.



More recently the distasteful spectre of Durkan & Co brown-nosing Sinn Fein/IRA to maximise nationalist leverage in the Belfast Agreement, instead of cutting cloth with fellow democrats, additionally negates Alban's little request for contrition. A call to have all terrorists re-incarcerated could have some benefit; a vulgar, opportunistic call for a mere apology certainly does not!!