Letter: After condemning Trump assassination bid, will Sinn Fein have a ‘Road to Damascus conversion’?

I have checked SF press releases and various news reports and cannot find what she actually said.

The first question is why did Mary Lou and Michelle O’Neill have to get permission from the army council to issue a condemnation or is it the fact that the IRA under whatever name they chose to name murdered so many unionist politicians - Edgar Graham in 1983; Senator John Barnhill, 1971; Sir Norman Stronge and his son James Stronge, murdered and their home, Tynan Abbey, destroyed in 1981; Rev Robert Bradford, 1981; the British Ambassador to Ireland Christopher Ewart Biggs; then there were the murders of Conservative politicians Airey Neave MP; Anthony Berry MP, murdered when the IRA attempted to murder the entire Conservative Party cabinet; Ian Gow MP; Baron Kabery; and Senator Billy Fox, a Fine Gael senator murdered because he was a Protestant - that the hypocrisy of the condemnation would be more newsworthy than the condemnation itself?

As Sinn Fein, it appears, now condemn attempted murders of politicians perhaps they will now have a ‘Road to Damascus conversion’ and condemn all the murders their bedfellows committed during a 30-plus year terror campaign.

I can understand their delay. It must stick in the throat of the leadership to condemn actions they actively supported throughout their existence. I await Mary Lou McDonald’s grovelling apology to the families of those politicians murdered and whose lives were under threat by their fanatical gunmen and bombers.

I know arguments could be made over all murders during the period of the Troubles, however these politicians were specifically targeted because of their political beliefs and many more were attacked and targeted.

Ross M Hussey, former Ulster Unionist MLA West Tyrone