IRA victim: Until we deal with the legacy of terrorism, we have little hope of reconciliation

​Though I must add that many of the non victim/survivor dissenting voices to this bill may be nothing more than smoke and mirrors, publicly opposed but privately delighted. The decision taken by the government to forge on with its ‘Legacy and "Reconciliation” bill’ with some tinkering, and its insistence to keep the immunity clause isn’t surprising.

Is it a possibility that the government would be in a precarious position otherwise, given that terrorists were not only appeased with the Belfast Agreement of 1998, but given legitimacy on the world stage? There has been little appetite to hold them and their apologists accountable for the last quarter of a century, this latest legacy policy is but a continuum of existing policy.

There appears to be no appetite on the part of government to recalibrate society, to build on more solid foundations. The state presided over letting terrorists out of prison, on the run letters were dished out like confetti, royal prerogatives of mercy were granted and the dirty weaponry which held the ballistics and evidence to the crimes committed were permitted to be put beyond use, whilst terrorists bagged concessions into the bargain.

There was no accountability for wrongdoing, no genuine repentance, no denunciation of terrorist violence from the perpetrators. Could it be that the last 25 years has shown the then naivety of government to believe that such concessions to terrorists at the expense of the innocent victims and survivors, would bring an end to their reign of terror, whether physically and/or psychologically?

We have all witnessed the insatiable revisionist narrative, the shifting of blame towards the ‘state’, the constant retraumatising of innocent victims and survivors, the general acceptance of such by many now within society.

Next to no rebuke of the same, no demands of the Republic of Ireland state to deliver for innocent victims and survivors, or of others who were equally culpable.

It pains me to think that the present government would have bought into that narrative and is now by this ‘Legacy and “Reconciliation”’ bill giving credence to the same.

That this it believes is its’ best course of action, dispensing with justice and diminishing the rule of law. Until we deal with the legacy of terrorism, for that is what it is and deliver true justice then we have little hope of being reconciled. The legacy of terrorism will remain our present, and sadly will be our future, and the generations to come. And my family will continue to be failed, along with so many others.

​Canon Alan Irwin, Lack, Fermanagh (his father Thomas and uncle Frederick were both murdered by the IRA)

MPs overturn attempts to remove immunity clause from Troubles legacy Bill