Letter: As someone whose dad was murdered by the IRA it turns my stomach to see 'Ooh ah up the Ra' chants - yet each year Feile follow the same sectarian course

The fact that it is a catchy line in a melodious song only adds to my dismay at its sinister and corrosive impact on the attitudes of those who sing it. Given the increasing criticism, each year, of this sectarian display one wonders why the organisers of the Feile continue to follow the same course. The director of the Feile was reported as saying, “Over the last 35 years, Feile has a proven track record of delivering significant social, cultural and economic benefits to the city of Belfast.”

There is no doubt that they have organised some ground breaking encounter events. I have never been invited to participate, but if I were to be, I would almost certainly accept. And yet, why finish every year with the crowd chanting ‘Up the ‘RA?’

Last year I was invited by Senator Mark Daly to contribute to the Seanad Public Consultation on the Constitutional Future of the Island of Ireland. The death of my mother prevented me from going down to Dublin to give evidence but I prepared something in writing which a colleague read to the committee. I outlined briefly how my father and one of his colleagues were callously murdered by the IRA at the police station in Ballygawley in the mouth of Christmas, 1985.

I then said this; “My father loved sport. In a competition for a finals place between Scotland, Wales and the Republic of Ireland, he would, like me, have cheered loudest for the Irish. To see a successful Irish football team, celebrate by chanting ‘Ooh ah, up the ‘RA’, turns my stomach.”

In concluding I posed this question for the Committee to consider – “In building any new future for this Island, how can we drain the putrid pus of this revisionist indoctrination that allows a new generation to ‘celebrate’ the violence of the IRA?”

It was one of the rare occasions when something I said was widely covered by the press in the Republic of Ireland.

In the wake of Feile 23, I pose the question again. Many news outlets, and this paper in particular have given extensive coverage to the still painful experience of many victims of the IRA – Protestant and Catholic. Will the organisers of Feile 24 hear those voices and lay silently to rest the chanting that glorifies an IRA terrorist campaign that was always ‘unjustified and unjustifiable’?

Rev David Clements, Cullybackey