Colm Meaney’s remarks at united Ireland rally were insulting and disappointing

As a victim and survivor of terrorism I was dismayed, yes dismayed and disappointed at the hyperbole comments of the actor Colm Meaney regarding the weekend’s event for a united Ireland in the 3Arena in Dublin.

Like the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) this discussion now also excludes and in my opinion deliberately ignores the impact this has had on the most important people concerned in this discussion, victims and survivors of terror.

Meaney made several inflammatory comments that are untrue. Self proclaimed republicans like Meaney state as a matter of their fact that refugees came to the Republic to escape the RUC and British army and not the IRA. Meaney ignores the fact, the indisputable fact that the IRA murdered more catholics than the British army and loyalist paramilitaries combined.

This portrayal of the IRA as noble freedom fighters is abhorrent and false. I find this republican revisionism of the facts as grossly offensive to the many victims, Catholic and Protestant of the IRA.

My father was murdered by loyalist paramilitaries in Dublin on May 17 1974 in Parnell Street. In my early 20s a then member of the IRA who is also a member of Sinn Fein attempted to solicit me to commit a double murder by placing a firearm in my hand and telling me he could drive me to the people who killed my father and tried to kill me and allow me to murder them and drive me back to Dublin and nobody would know.

Thankfully I refused his ‘polite’ offer.

People engaged in this discussion of a united Ireland are missing the point by miles. And unbelievably sad that so many so called intelligent people are allowing themselves to be associated with this agenda.

For any person attempting to engage any person of a unionist background into this united Ireland discussion stop telling them there was no alternative to the violence. Many had relatives murdered in front of them. The immeasurable trauma and grief of that will never leave them.

For me and people like me its Groundhog Day. Every time we shave and shower we see and feel the bullet holes, the shrapnel wounds and burns caused by bombs. I was five years old when I was injured. I am still being treated for my injuries 48 years later I have had 64 surgical procedures with more planned.

I am only gone 53 years old, still a young man by standards yet have had more surgeries than I have had years on this earth. My quality of like is dictated by access to painkillers and access to doctors to try and treat injuries that were caused by same type of people who connected to the discussion in the 3Arena event. How offensive

Your insensitive hyperbole is offensive and insulting. If you want this to be meaningful truthful discussion then engage with all victims and survivors who were left behind by the GFA.

I will remind you that the last paramilitary security assessment in 2020 made public stated that the IRA was still armed, still recruiting and still gathering intelligence. Yet any mention of that by people like me and we are dismissed as anti SF/anti peace process.

Edward O Neill, Survivor, Parnell Street bomb