Letter: Gerry Adams has rubbed salt into the wounds of victims
A letter from Rev David Clements:
I can’t prove that Gerry Adams was a senior member of the IRA, though I am inclined to believe the testimony of many who admit they were in the IRA, and who say that Gerry was there too.
I remember the widely reported incident at a large rally in Belfast, in 1995, when a man in the crowd called for the IRA to carry on with their violent campaign. Mr. Adams chuckled and said, “they haven’t gone away, you know”.
Thirty years on, let me tell you about something else that still has not gone away – the suffering of IRA victims.
There are not as many widows now, for many of them, including my mother, are now buried beside their murdered husbands.
Orphans have grown up without the loving guidance and support of their father.
Then there is the next generation, like my four grown up kids, who never got to meet their Granda, to see his smile and hear him laugh. That bitter loss has not gone away, you know.
I have found watching the reports from outside the High Court in Dublin deeply distressing. I find it hard to comprehend how the jury came to its conclusion.
A friend who was in the court told me that the jury looked very young and perhaps they did not have the personal experience of living through the darkest days of the Troubles.
They won’t have been the only ones to grow up with a sanitised and distorted version of our history.
Until I am laid to rest in the grave beside mum and dad, I will use my voice to speak out the bitter truth.
Mr Adams may think he has won a great victory in the court in Dublin, but he has just rubbed salt into many wounds – and that is the bitter truth.
Rev David Clements, Cullybackey (his RUC officer father was murdered by the IRA in 1985)