Ben Lowry: Try to imagine a Bloody Sunday memorial that did not mention the Paras the way the Bloody Friday commemoration did not mention the IRA

Then imagine that this fictitious British military-linked party had such influence within the local council in Londonderry that for a long time it was not clear if the local authority would hold any event at all to mark the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, January 30 1972, when the Parachute Regiment shot and killed 14 unarmed civilians.

Imagine that, when it became clear that a low-key memorial event would in fact take place, this British military party seemed to have a say in how the council marked the date.

Also imagine that the mayor who was a member of this British political party, which refused to condemn Bloody Sunday or to blame the soldiers who fired at civilians, turned up at the commemoration.

Then go on to imagine that the families of victims of Bloody Sunday would have been too polite to mention the presence of this pro British military politician at the service. Imagine also that the order of service for the minor commemoration event read on its cover:

‘The 50th anniversary of the events which took place in Londonderry on 30 January 1972.’

The inside of the order of service said: ‘To remember those who lost their lives [followed by list of the dead] and to acknowledge the impact on all of the survivors and families of those who were injured and died on that day’.

Then followed a service with poems and readings about peace and grief and so on.

But not a word that these ‘events’ had been carried out by the Parachute Regiment, and had come to be known as Bloody Sunday.

And finally, keep all of the imaginary scenario outlined above in your head, and go on to imagine that barely anyone in the media so much as mentioned this saga.

That only one newspaper flagged up outrage at such a flagrant white-washing of what actually happened in Derry on January 30 1972.

It is of course impossible to imagine such a sequence of events having happened in Londonderry earlier this year without fury.

Yet a parallel scenario happened this very week in Belfast. And barely a word was said about it outside of this paper. It was, I understand, for a long while not even clear what, if anything, would be done by Belfast City Council to mark one of the most heinous massacres in Northern Ireland’s capital city, the IRA bombing blitz of Bloody Friday.

Then, when the memorial event did happen on Thursday, it was a small, private affair. Sinn Fein, a party long seen as being the political wing of the IRA, is the biggest party on the council.

The order of service for the minor Bloody Friday commemoration read on its cover: ‘The 50th anniversary of the events which took place in Belfast on 21 July 1972.’

The inside of the order of service said: ‘To remember those who lost their lives [followed by list of the dead] and to acknowledge the impact on all of the survivors and families of those who were injured and died on that day’.

Not a hint of the nature of the ‘events’ of that day. Not a mention of the IRA or of the long used term ‘Bloody Friday’ (used indeed on our front page the next day, July 22 1972).

This order of service was echoed by a press release put out by Sinn Fein, which announced that the party’s mayor of Belfast Tina Black, and its councillors Ryan Murphy and Ronan McLaughlin, attended the ceremony. The SF release said: “We must all remember the hurt, pain and suffering of those who were killed or injured that day. All loss during conflict results in pain, suffering and trauma and continuing grief for the people left behind.”

There was no mention of the IRA or even what happened 50 years before. It could have been an accidental fire or an earthquake.

What happened this week at Belfast City Council was not surprising from a body that has disgraced itself before, such as its facilitating of the Bobby Storey mass IRA funeral during lockdown. That the Victims and Survivors Commission helped with the ‘Don’t-Metion-the-IRA’ wording made the whole saga even worse.

But really, if you are in any way surprised by the travesty of a memorial service that acted as if Bloody Friday barely happened, let alone was an IRA bloodbath, you have not been paying attention.

You have either not been paying attention to the details of what is happening on legacy such as a Sinn Fein mayor attending the anniversary of the massacre of Coleraine pensioners that she would not condemn.

Or to the general trend, in which fools or apologists for terrorism are helping to rehabilitate the long IRA campaign of sectarian hatred and murder.

• Ben Lowry (@BenLowry2) is News Letter editor

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