Ben Lowry: We will be running an essay by Dean Godson on Blair Wallace, a hero of the Troubles

​The article has been written by that great friend of Northern Ireland, the brilliant journalist and commentator and thinker, Dean Godson, author of a major biography of the late David Trimble (click here for a report on Blair Wallace’s funeral).

The essay, a shorter version of which has been published by the Spectator magazine, starts as follows:

“It’s a curious thing – but thirty years after the first IRA ceasefire, everyone can still name leading republicans like Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness and Bobby Sands. By contrast, how many in Great Britain can identify a GOC Northern Ireland or a Chief Constable of the RUC? Or, indeed, a single security force hero of the Troubles? Blair Wallace, who has died aged 87, was just such a hero. He was the last of the “big beasts” of the RUC Chief Officers from the height of the conflict.”

Yesterday I was among the mourners at the funeral of Mr Wallace, which we report on page 15. (Click here for Ben Lowry’s main column, about Stormont financial recklessness)

The situation re the handling of the legacy of the Troubles (ie the legacy of terrorism) gets ever worse, in which the heroes of the RUC and military are made the villains, eg at Clonoe. At the News Letter we will keep reporting on this scandal.

Ben Lowry (@BenLowry2) is News Letter editor