Trevor Ringland: There was always an alternative to violence in order to achieve goals

By Letters

Published 16th Aug 2023, 06:30 BST

Updated 16th Aug 2023, 07:49 BST

When one reflects on the widespread focus on the understandable concerns around the threat to the security of PSNI officers arising out of the data leaks, one is left wondering why we are not angrier about what seems to be an acceptance of an “acceptable level of threat” to them and their families.

It particularly emanates from Irish republicanism’s latest version of the hatreds that emerged in Easter 1916. Only in Northern Ireland would this matter have led to such apprehension.

Surely 25 years after the Agreement, we are entitled to expect what the people of this island endorsed as the only acceptable method of promoting a constitutional preference, being: make Northern Ireland work socially and economically with great relations on this island and between these islands. It really is as simple as that!

The wider police family are resilient in the face of the threats they have to live with and that will continue to be the case.

Those nationalists and republicans who serve us all in the ranks of the PSNI do more to promote their constitutional preference than the actions of those inspired by the deeply flawed ideology of old.

Proper recognition of that should help their families and friends challenge those around them who suggest otherwise.

Seamus Mallon’s legacy to the people here of the concept of a shared home place reminds us that Northern Ireland belongs to all of us who live here.

The 25th anniversary of the Omagh bomb should reinvigorate us to be more challenging to all those who fail to embrace what was envisaged in the Agreement.

It has been a mistake of our peace process that we have ignored the hatreds that fed our conflict. In particular, it has been a specific strategy of some in nationalism and republicanism to sell the great lie that current generations owe violent republicanism for what they have today!

Hence young people sing ‘Ooh Aah Up the Ra’ and polls indicate that 70% of nationalists feel that republicans had no alternative but to use violence to achieve their aims, without even asking what those aims were.

A better foundation to build the future upon are the words of the late former senator Maurice Hayes, that “Nothing was achieved through violence that could not otherwise have been achieved through peaceful means!”

Trevor Ringland, Belfast