'This is what happens when terrorism infects the mainstream': Troubles campaigner reacts to Dublin children's pro-IRA chant
The head of a Troubles victims’ charity has said that the most recent case of youngsters chanting “up the Ra” is a consequence of “terrorism infecting the mainstream”.
Kenny Donaldson, the director of the South East Fermanagh Foundation, made the comments after the chanting formed part of a BBC Newsline bulletin about the Olympics last night.
“Tonight’s BBC NI news report was a timely illustration of the place to which society has descended, north and south of our border,” he said.
"The normalisation agenda of terrorism, its supporters and apologists and the inactions of others has brought us to the place where kids celebrate sporting success by engaging in pro-IRA trance-like chanting...
"This isn’t a bit of crack… this is what happens when the structures of society allows terrorism to infect the mainstream."
He said it was the consequence of “a policy of 30 and more years in the making”.
Meanwhile Austin Stack, whose father Brian Stack, a Portlaoise prison officer who was killed by the IRA in 1983, told the Nolan Show this morning about a recent case of a band singing “ooh ahh up the RA” by a band in his hometown – a gig he was at.
That incident had left him “absolutely shocked”.
"It has become almost acceptable,” he said. “It’s like it’s banter. It’s like youngsters have been radicalised.”
On the latest incident on last night’s BBC bulletin, he said: “This is where there’s a failure at state level. We need to have better education.
"The education curriculum needs to quite clearly teach people what went on in the Troubles – not a romantic notion.”
Commentator Malachi O’Doherty, a long-time critic of the IRA, also added his thoughts, saying: “I also worry that by signalling to people how easily we are offended by this behaviour, we are actually encouraging this behaviour.
"If we let them know how they rattle us, they are going to do it.”
A BBC spokesperson said: “We dealt quickly and effectively with this live broadcast situation.”
The corporation has been asked if there will be any apology for the broadcast of the chant, and a response is awaited.