Editorial: If Dublin has the nerve to take a legacy case against London to Europe then with hope British patience over lreland over the past will finally snap

​​There is hardly a better illustration of the inversion of right and wrong on legacy than the call by Michelle O'Neill for Ireland to sue the UK. Sinn Fein's Stormont leader wants Dublin to take legacy action over London's plans to deal with the past.

This is not the first time that the idea of legal action against Britain has been mooted in Europe (taken under the Strasbourg human rights convention). The Republic of Ireland has repeatedly chided the UK on legacy. Not only is this almost never contradicted by a weak UK government, latterly amidst all the pressure Britain promised to consult with the Irish.

Meanwhile unionists have let it be said repeatedly of London, including by the Irish government, that all the Northern Ireland parties are opposed to the legacy plans. It is true but gives the impression that SF and unionists are on the same page.

This is all grotesque on multiple levels. First because SF is the party that was inextricably linked to the IRA and now not merely defends republican terrorism but celebrates it. Second because SF and the Irish government speak in chorus against the planned amnesty when there is an existing de facto amnesty on both sides of the Irish border for the IRA, so that only the security forces seem to face trial or investigation. Third because among the 2014 Stormont House agreement's abject failures was a process to investigate Ireland's three-decade extradition refusals which enabled hundreds of IRA murders.

Read opposite Ruth Dudley Edwards on Father Ryan (click here), a man whom the Republic would not extradite and who now boasts from there about his IRA past. Read also the Aontú leader (click here) push for the UK to be sued and threaten to name security force members. You would hope an Irish legal case would cause the UK’s endless patience with nationalist Ireland on legacy belatedly to snap.