Letter: Alliance must be more vocal in opposing glorification of terrorism
A letter from William Mitchell:
The assertion by Sinn Féin leaders Michelle O’Neill that there was “no alternative” to the IRA campaign, and Mary Lou McDonald’s claim that it was “justified” are not acts of integrity and truth but revisionism – deliberate political choices to reframe decades of bombing, murder and sectarian terror as somehow necessary or noble.
The IRA’s campaign killed over 1,700 people. The majority of those victims were civilians. They included Protestants, Catholics, RUC officers, schoolchildren, elderly pensioners, customs officers and ordinary workers from every background; people who had no part in any armed conflict.
These were not “accidents of war”, they were calculated attacks, many sectarian in character, designed to terrorise communities and destroy democratic institutions.
The idea that such actions were inevitable or that there were no alternatives is not just historically false, it is a lie. Non-violent activism existed. Democratic nationalism existed. Dialogue existed.
The IRA did not wage its war in the absence of options; it waged it in defiance of them. For nearly 30 years, the IRA chose the bullet over the ballot, even when a political path was available.
Today, we are not witnessing a process of moving on from violence, which they inform unionists almost on a weekly basis to do. No, we are witnessing a process of recasting it by nationalism in general and Sinn Fein in particular.
Murals and IRA memorials go up not to mourn the dead, but to celebrate the bombers and murderers. Young GAA supporters chant “Ooh ah, up the Ra” not in ignorance, but in defiance of historical truth.
Artists like Kneecap make light of kneecapping, of so-called IRA “informers” shot in the head, of families threatened, mutilated and exiled. This is not cultural expression. It is the casual normalisation of political murder.
There is a moral and democratic responsibility here, not only for Sinn Féin, but for others who share power with them.
The Alliance Party, which claims a cross-community mandate and a vision of reconciliation, has been conspicuously silent.
Its MLAs sit in Stormont while unrepentant IRA terrorists hold office in the Executive. Is this not hypocrisy? Is it not an affront to democracy and a trampling on the graves of the very citizens whose murders they claim to deplore?
Neutrality in the face of such historical distortion is not impartiality, it is acquiescence.
It is silent support for a revisionist Irish nationalism that seeks to vindicate the killing of neighbours, police officers, and public servants as somehow noble or necessary.
If Alliance truly stands for a shared society, it must do more than speak in generalities. It must say plainly: no political cause can justify decades of paramilitary violence. No seat at the table can excuse silence in the face of glorified terrorism.
Reconciliation does not require us to forget, but it demands honesty.
That honesty means acknowledging not only the outcomes of the IRA’s campaign, but its methods. It means resisting every attempt to sanitise, glorify, or excuse their violence.
A genuinely shared future cannot be built on myths. It must be built on truth, on equal dignity for innocent victims and on the absolute, unambiguous rejection of political violence, past and present.
Alliance Party and others seem to be selective!
William Mitchell, Lisburn