Letter: I note the contrast between the moving ceremony I attended to commemorate my murdered father and the IRA event Sinn Fein for a terrorist
A letter from Rev David Clements:
I read with interest yesterday morning the report by Philip Bradfield on the controversy surrounding the Mid Ulster Council Chairman’s attendance at an IRA event in Carrickmore commemorating Jim Lynagh (April 28, click here to read the report).
I found the report poignant, in part because your reporter quoted a previous letter of mine (Click here: ‘The IRA murdered my dad so I feel sick when I hear hypocritical republicans complain about shoot to kill,’ April 13 2024), regarding the recovery of my murdered father’s police-issue weapon at the scene at Loughgall, where Lynagh died.
However, what struck me most was the irony that on Sunday afternoon I attended a memorial service in Ballygawley Presbyterian Church, commemorating five RUC officers murdered by the IRA during the Troubles. My four siblings and I, along with the families of the other men remembered, found it a very moving and meaningful service.
Raymond, a colleague of all the men who were murdered gave a very moving reflection on some of his memories of them all. He was particularly close to my dad. Raymond survived a vicious attack by the IRA in 1979 and was badly injured. Dad was a great support to him during his long recovery. Raymond shared something on Sunday that I had not known before – Dad sang at Raymond’s wedding. My younger sisters remember the story – apparently to motivate him in his recovery, Dad said, ‘if you can walk down the aisle, I’ll sing at your wedding!’
It is no concession to say that everyone has the right to remember their own dead. Yet the contrast between the Sinn Fein event commemorating Lynagh and the one I attended is stark – a sad metaphor indeed, for the tangled mess the legacy issue has become.
I would much rather be the son of a man who died in a bottle green uniform, serving to protect his community, than a friend or relative of a man who died in a boilersuit and balaclava, intent on murdering yet more good men, like those remembered in Ballygawley on Sunday afternoon.
Rev David Clements, Cullybackey