O'Dowd opened a door; now SF must step on through

It goes: “All truth passes through three stages.

“First it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”

In regard to the ‘Troubles’, most people in Northern Ireland reached the third stage many years ago – realising that a majority wished to remain part of the UK and that the British state would be resolute in defending this desire.

Clearly, the Provisional IRA were slow learners.

But there is another aspect of the truth that was highlighted by John O’Dowd’s condemnation of the Kingsmill massacre as ‘sectarian’ and ‘shameful’ on ‘The View’ last week [BBC1, Thursday January 11].

It relates to the nature of the IRA ‘war’.

In the 1790s Wolfe Tone, the leader of the United Irishmen, sought to unite Protestant, Catholic and dissenter and substitute the common name of Irishmen and Irish women in place of the divisive labels of the past.

Most of the leaders of the United Irishmen were actually Protestants. In the 20th century, however, nearly all the IRA leaders were Catholic and militant republicanism became a Catholic enterprise. The IRA ‘war’ after 1969 totally betrayed Tone’s aim.

Kingsmill was an example, as was Claudy, La Mon, Enniskillen, the Shankill and many other sectarian and shameful atrocities.

You do not unite people by inciting them to kill one another, yet the IRA killed more Irish people than ‘the enemy’.

And that is the question. Who actually was ‘the enemy’? The Provos couldn’t make up their minds whether it was the British or their fellow countrymen. One day they would kill British soldiers; the next day they would kill Protestant Irish workmen.

Is O’Dowd’s condemnation, supported by the Sinn Fein leadership, the beginnings of a final acknowledgement of the obvious truth that an anti-colonial conflict was inextricably mixed up with a sectarian dirty war?

There is a further truth that was always apparent except to those who were blinded by their ideology.

It is that the majority would not be bullied by bombs and bullets into a united Ireland. In the programme O’Dowd admitted that those who carried out the Kingsmill killings “did not in any way advance the cause of Irish unity”.

In the programme O’Dowd admitted that those who carried out the Kingsmill killings “did not in any way advance the cause of Irish unity”.

The ultimate truth therefore is that far from advancing this aim the IRA ‘war’ was a major obstacle to its achievement.

They strengthened the resolve of the majority to oppose terror and intimidation.

The IRA’s political leadership has accepted the principle of consent and agreed to participate in the north’s political institutions. O’Dowd has opened the door of truth.

It is now up to the Sinn Fein leadership to step through that opening and publicly accept that the IRA ‘war’ was wrong and apologise to all its victims.

The cause of a united Ireland is a noble one, but there is no sane alternative to persuasion.Only when the people here are united by their common humanity will the border be seen as obsolete and unnecessary.

Brian McClinton, Lisburn, BT27