Liam Kennedy: Jarlath Burns' comparison between south Armagh during the Troubles and 'genocide' in Gaza is disturbing and disappointing

So, I find the angrily defensive comments last weekend by the president of the GAA, Jarlath Burns, as reported in the Irish News, both disturbing and disappointing.

The context was the disruption of the GAA’s annual conference by a group of pro-Palestinian protesters, in which the legendary Gaelic footballer, Peter Canavan, played a leading part. The issue was the continued sponsorship of the GAA’s National League by the commercial company Allianz, which allegedly has links to Israeli defence companies and the war in Gaza.

Clearly stung by the force of the protesters’ demonstration, the GAA president shot back by making a comparison between his experience of growing up in south Armagh during the Troubles and the “genocide in Gaza”.

Really? To be fair, Burns is not alleging “genocide” in south Armagh (genocide in Gaza is itself a contested claim). But I can’t recall heavy bombing raids over the county in those years of the Troubles. Nor can I recall damage, as in Gaza, to more than 80% of the county’s housing. Or the mass migration of most of the population. Or families living in tents in the depths of winter. Or hungry dehydrated children.

What we have here is the grotesque use of the suffering of another people, thousands of miles away, to fend off a bit of “local difficulty” within the GAA. (The example would have been no less grotesque had Burns exploited the terror and the tragedy visited on Israeli citizens on October 7, 2023, at the hands of Hamas terrorists.)

Appropriating, almost casually, the sufferings of ordinary Palestinians to divert attention from a commercial deal that may or may not be justified, is surely a mark of poor leadership, though I can accept that Burns personally felt real fear when growing up in south Armagh. So did many others, and not just from loyalists.

There is a closely related and troubling dimension to the president’s outburst. He tells us: ‘“Fifty years on, justice still hasn’t been served for the 120 innocent Catholics who were murdered by the Glenanne Gang in a four-year period in my area, in my community.”

This is undoubtedly true. But is this the case only for “my community”? In County Tipperary, and in most of the Republic of Ireland, the GAA is seen as non-denominational and non- sectarian and would not speak in such communally exclusive terms. The border regions may be an exception.

Unfortunately, in Northern Ireland, there is “my community” and the “other community”. But surely in summoning up remembrances of the murderous Glenanne Gang and the sectarian terror it inflicted, there might be some consideration for the other community.

I’m not aware of much justice for the families of the Kingsmill Protestant workers shot to death on the roadside at the end of a day’s work. I also doubt if the families of any of those tortured by the Provisional IRA in south Armagh and their near naked bodies discarded along the border have ever seen the perpetrators brought before the courts.

Many of those tortured victims were from Catholic nationalist backgrounds, which rather complicates Burns’ simple narrative.

I think of Paul Quinn, beaten for half an hour in a lonely farmyard, not far from Cullyhanna, by IRA men wielding iron bars and nail-studded clubs. It is said that every bone below his neck was broken. Mercifully, if it is possible to say such a thing, his broken and punctured body gave up its struggle for life in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital soon after.

There is a wider concern about the memory of the Troubles, which Burns comments may be signalling. An opinion poll in August 2022 found that roughly seven out of every 10 Northern nationalists believed the IRA’s “armed struggle” was somehow necessary to produce political reform. This assumption seems to be widely shared among those of the post-Good Friday Agreement generation.

Surely it is the responsibility of leaders in our society, in politics, in the arts, in sport, to challenge what I once described as communal sectarian perspectives on the Troubles. This would involve restating some obvious truths.

For all the imperfections of the Northern Ireland polity and its troubled history, there were alternative routes to reform which were subverted by the terrorist campaigns of the IRA and their loyalist counterparts, including the Glenanne Gang.

Second, and it needs repeating, 90 per cent of the killings during the Troubles were due to loyalist and republican paramilitary gangs. Yes, there was collusion between rogue members of the security forces and loyalist paramilitaries, but this only accounts for a small fraction of the overall killings. We cannot use these as a smokescreen to hide the overwhelming reality that loyalist and republican killers were the primary agencies for murder, bombings and civilian injuries.

Another terrible truth: republican gunmen killed and maimed thousands of people from Catholic, nationalist backgrounds. Loyalist gunmen killed and maimed thousands of people from Protestant, unionist backgrounds. It didn’t matter that you were wearing the right ethno-national jersey.

Fourth, when loyalist and republican paramilitaries went on ceasefire in 1994 (and 1997), the bombings and the killings declined dramatically. That was hardly a coincidence in timing.

I’m sure Jarlath Burns is a good man but as president of a major national sports organisation and as headmaster of a school – two vital leadership roles – I feel he has some explaining to do.

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l Liam Kennedy is Emeritus professor of history, QUB, and a once aspiring hurling star