The IRA campaign was never justified, and for its victim makers to get a pension is perverse

I refer to the article Unionists unmoved by Mary Lou McDonald’s ‘combatants and civilians’ distinction (June 16).
Letter to the editorLetter to the editor
Letter to the editor

Mary Lou McDonald, Sinn Fein President, never fails to disappoint in terms of her defence of the IRA which was responsible for the overwhelming number of 18,000 bombings and incendiary devices, 36,000 shootings, 50,000 casualties, 6,000 punishment attacks and 1,800 murders during their horrific, barbaric and unjustified campaign of violence in Northern Ireland, Britain and beyond.

The same Mary Lou recently said s it was a ‘justified’ campaign.

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She said: “It was utterly inevitable and anyone with even a passing sense of Irish history could have predicted it surely as night and day” (‘Terror victims hit out at Mary Lou McDonald’s justification of IRA campaign, which insults victims on all sides’, May 26)

To innocent victims her comments on the IRA campaign are hurtful.

This campaign was never justified or predictable, nor did the IRA have a mandate from the people of Northern Ireland.

Murder is wrong. Maiming innocent men, woman and children, leaving many disabled is wrong.

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For Sinn Fein to obstruct a disabled pension to those who were seriously injured and permanently disabled, suffering physically and mentally 24 hours a day as a direct result of the actions of the IRA (or loyalists) is repugnant.

This woman, brought up in a wealthy part of Dublin who attended a private school can never begin to understand what the people of Northern Ireland, Britain and further afield suffered for 30 years at the hands of an organisation she consistently defends, honours and commemorates.

Her suggestion that IRA victim makers receive a pension is perverse. The present obstruction is obscene. Reference by her to ‘that’s how we heal’ implies grave misunderstanding, is offensive and ill-considered in the circumstances.

Bereft of moral compass Mary Lou?

Issy Whyte, Co Down

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