Unionists angered by ‘triumphal’ republican dinner
The husband of a woman killed in an IRA bomb has branded ‘‘offensive’’ a weekend commemoration in Dublin of republicans killed during the Troubles.
Alan McBride, whose wife Sharon was among nine civilians killed in a bomb attack on a fish shop on the loyalist Shankill Road which also killed an IRA member, criticised a dinner organised in a Dublin hotel on Saturday by Sinn Fein for 450 families of republicans killed during the conflict.
Mr McBride said: ‘‘I don’t see how it contributes to the building of peace because it offends me.
‘‘There certainly seemed to be no expense spared.
‘‘I agree with Gerry Adams when he says we need to be involved in a national healing process. I think that’s totally appropriate.
‘‘But I think when we think about that we have to be very careful about the sort of things we do and how that would offend other people.
‘‘I definitely think that this thing at the weekend, with the expense that was lavished on it, offends me.
‘‘I mean one of the people that was being commemorated, I am sure, was Thomas Begley who murdered my wife in a very cruel and very callous fashion on the Shankill Road in a fashion not unlike the suicide bombers in Palestine.’’
Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams paid tribute to IRA and Sinn Fein members killed during the troubles in a speech at the event on Saturday.
The West Belfast MP praised the ‘‘extraordinary calibre’’ of IRA members and claimed their cause was noble.
He told the dinner that the IRA have proven to be ‘‘one of the most affective guerilla armies in the world.
‘‘The forces of the Crown failed and they failed because of you.
‘‘They failed to defeat the IRA because they failed to defeat you.
‘‘To all of you, to the families and friends of the fallen but, especially, to all of our fallen comrades, our pledge is to persevere until the day of freedom they lived and died for is achieved.
‘‘Republicans freely acknowledge the grief of all those - enemies as well as friends - who have lost loved ones in the conflict.
‘‘Part of our great endeavour, at this time, is to reach out to make peace with those we have hurt and with those who have hurt us.’’
However Mr Adams’ comments angered unionists and moderate nationalists.
SDLP Deputy Leader Brid Rodgers accused Mr Adams of ‘‘repulsive revisionism’’ about the IRA.
The nationalist Agriculture Minister in the Stormont Executive claimed a lot of people would have been appalled by Mr Adams remarks, accusing him of glorifying IRA violence.
‘‘What was glorious about the murders of innocent civilians in Belfast, London or Claudy?’’ she asked.
‘‘What was glorious about the murders of workmen on their way home from work?’’
Ulster unionist Environment Minister Dermot Nesbitt accused the Sinn Fein leader of ‘‘living in the Europe of the 1930s’’.
He urged Mr Adams to ‘‘lift his gaze above the narrow view of Irish nationalism and look at the new Europe of the 21st century.’’
Mr McBride today told BBC Radio Ulster he objected to such a public commemoration by republicans of their dead.
It smacked of triumphalism, he argued.
He did not however have any objections to republicans remembering their dead. ‘‘But to throw a party and to do it in the way that they did it does smack of triumphalism and offends me,’’ he said.
