'Academia must shoulder blame for distortion of Troubles' say authors of book on targeting of Protestants

That is the view of Dr Ken Funston, who this week launched a book – co-authored with Dr Cillian McGrattan – on the plight of Protestants living in the borderlands during the conflict.

Meanwhile Dr McGrattan said he is concerned about the chances for reconciliation, since there has been a "degradation of the nationalist narrative" about the Troubles.

The pair were speaking at the launch of the book 'The Northern Ireland Conflict on the Margins of History' at the University of Ulster's Belfast campus on Monday.

Around 60 people attended the event, during which both authors – and Queen's University Belfast professor Liam Kennedy – spoke about the importance of remembering the objective reality of the Troubles.

When the time came for a question-and-answer session, the News Letter asked Dr Funston how he reacts to young people who have no direct experience of the Troubles saying things in support of the Provisional movement.

"'Up the Ra', 'tiochfaidh ar la', the usual: it's easy to say they don't know what they're saying or what they're doing,” he replied.

“But children nowadays are well educated."

The problem, he went on to add, is the nature of that education.

"I think the issue more than anything else is I have to blame the universities, to be totally honest: what's being said and taught in the universities," he said.

"You go into the library, you don't see material like this here [their book]. You just don't get it. It's not there.

"I remember when I was doing my MA at Queen's, going through the old library at Queen's, and you just had to really search for stuff that met the studies I was doing."

Young people risk getting the wrong impression about the conflict as a result, "unless these students are faced with the likes of me and Cillian and others who are trying to be middle-of-the-road and talk to people and tell them [how] it happened, this is what went on".

He hailed the work of South East Fermanagh Foundation, the Troubles victims' charity which he used to work for.

One of SEFF's major projects is the production of quilts comprised of patches honouring people from all sides who were murdered.

"I actually remember a number of years ago up at St Mary's College we had memorial quilts," said Dr Funston.

"Two young girls who were from east Tyrone burst out in tears and said 'we were never taught any of this, we never knew about any of this' – and these were two young ladies training to be teachers.

"There's a job of work out there to tell the real story of what happened in the Troubles, across the board – not just one version or another version."

Ulster University politics lecturer Dr McGrattan said "I think things have gotten worse" when it comes to the forgetting of the Troubles.

"John Hume used to read out the names of the dead at the SDLP annual general meetings," he said, whereas in recent times "senior SDLP leaders" – a reference to Colum Eastwood – "carry the coffins of dead paramilitaries, terrorists, whatever term you want to use".

On the prospects for "reconciliation", he said: "There's been a degradation of the nationalist narrative, certainly in these past 20 or 30 years.

"So what would reconciliation be heading towards, in that regard? I'm not sure."

He too was critical of the approach to the Troubles taken by universities.

"I can't think of one event [in either Queen's or Ulster University]... over this past while that has focused on Protestant memory, or even the politics of victimhood, or the politics of unionism," he said.

Events like Monday's gathering "are sadly lacking in universities," he said, whilst in the media, outside of the News Letter, "these questions tend not to be asked".

He hopes for a "sea change" so that academia will "take some of these questions more seriously".

"I suppose time will tell on that front," he added.

Dr Kennedy told Monday’s gathering that around 70% of nationalists believe “there was no alternative” to violence during the Troubles – something he called an “astonishing figure”.

You can read his full remarks at this link: Republicans have thrown up a smokescreen around their killings of Protestants

The News Letter put Dr McGrattan’s criticism of the SDLP to the party.

It responded by saying: “This kind of scurrilous nonsense completely demeans our discourse.

"The SDLP is and remains committed to non-violence.

"While remaining focused on building a genuinely reconciled, hopeful future for our island, we regularly and fearlessly challenge narratives which justify, trivialise or glamorise violence from all sides of our conflict.”