DUP MP Gregory Campbell points out the vast difference between memorials in Coleraine and South Armagh

​Gregory Campbell said the service to unveil a memorial to those who lost their lives in the 1973 Coleraine bomb is a reminder that victims and the terrorists who created those victims cannot be viewed in the same way.

The East Londonderry MP said: “Today marks 50 years since this atrocity, taking the lives of six innocent people changing the lives of many others forever.

“This memorial is a permanent reminder of those who were murdered on that day, but the event also made clear the total innocence of those who were murdered.

"Attempts to portray those who lost their lives at the hands of terrorists as being equal to those who carried out such attacks is absurd and totally unacceptable. The pain felt by families at the loss of a loved one may be the same, but it doesn’t mean that victims and terrorists were the same.”

He added: “That thread runs through Michelle O’Neill’s assertion that there was ‘no alternative’ to the IRA’s terrorism. It was an attempt to excuse the actions of perpetrators and equate them with victims who truly had no alternative, such as when Provisional IRA members exploded a no-warning bomb in a busy town centre.

“A false debate about the right to remember those who lost their lives won’t change the vast difference there is between the innocents who are commemorated on the simple memorial erected in Coleraine and the guilty who have their names etched on a wall in South Armagh.”

TUV leader Jim Allister, who also attended the service yesterday, commented: "I was pleased to attend the dedication and unveiling of the memorial to the innocent victims of the 1973 IRA bombing in Coleraine, along with TUV president William Ross and recently elected TUV councillors Allister Kyle and Jonathan McAuley.

"What a contrast with [Sunday]’s disgusting glorification of the IRA’s victim makers."