Irish President Catherine Connolly Londonderry visit ‘missed opportunity for reconciliation’ -DUP MP
DUP members will today recieve an email from MP Gregory Campbell in which he reflects that the Irish President ‘missed an opportunity for genuine reconciliation and balance’ during her visit to Londonderry this week.
The weekly internal party email, this week entitled: "Never afraid to speak out and speak up" was written by the East Londonderry MP.
In it he reflected on meeting Irish President Catherine Connolly at the Guildhall in Londonderry on Thursday during an official visit to Northern Ireland.
After her speech, Mr Campbell challenged her that it had been one-sided because she mentioned only Derry and not Londonderry - and while it reflected on the suffering of Catholics, made no mention of the mass migration of Protestants due to sectarian violence.
In her speech, the president said she was grateful to Londonderry for showing “the path from conflict to peace”, adding that “justice is still awaited” by the Bloody Sunday families.
After she finished, Mr Campbell referred to his plan to attend a debate in Dublin later that evening, telling Ms Connolly: “You’re in our country. Tonight I’m going to your country.”
He added: “We’re not leaving the United Kingdom, not now or at any time in the future, so I think it’s better if we try and ensure no-one rewrites the past as we all build for the future.”
She replied: “We’re here to listen and to learn from each other and rewriting history would be…”. Mr Campbell then interjected “a big mistake”, to which Ms Connolly agreed, saying: “In any country and in many countries they’ve rewritten history to suit a narrative.”
Speaking to reporters afterwards, the MP said he “warmly welcomed her to this part of the United Kingdom” and "she apologised for not making the proper references".
In his email today, Mr Campbell said "the tone and content" of the visit raised concerns.
The President repeatedly referred to the city as “Derry” without even “a token reference” to “Londonderry” or recognition that unionists are an integral part of the city, he said.
Her main speech in the city was delivered on the west bank of Londonderry, which was very mixed before the Troubles, he said.
During the Troubles, however, he said Protestant families were “systematically intimidated” out, through “murder and sustained threat” – now making up less than 5% of the 60,000 population on the West Bank.
While the President “understandably” acknowledged the suffering of Catholics in the city during the Troubles, there was “no reference to the intimidation and displacement experienced by Protestants” from the area she was speaking in.
This, he said, represented “a missed opportunity for genuine reconciliation and balance”.
The event caused him to reflect on Queen Elizabeth II’s widely acclaimed visit to the Republic in 2011 - “while the Irish President missed the opportunity to do likewise on her visit to Northern Ireland”.
Mr Campbell then reflected on the debate he attended on Thursday night at University College Dublin, attended by almost 200 students, where he challenged the claim that a border-poll and its outcome would be inevitable.
He told the students NI only succeeds when it recognises “all its people” and argued that those advocating “the abolition” of NI “continue to leave fundamental questions unanswered” particularly on consent, economics, security and identity.