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Unionists say ‘No one should work with murderers like Sinn Fein’.
A. Few of those who were actually in the IRA are still elected representatives in Sinn Fein.
B. They did what they had to do to defend their communities from British and Loyalist/Unionist aggression and attempt to release the iron grip of Unionist/British rule. Do we really buy the line – ‘There was another way other than to fight’? Sometimes violence is the only way to bring about peace. Ironically we hear it every day from the British and Americans.
C. Sinn Fein has the largest mandate in the North that it has ever had and is the largest party in the Executive. In the South, it is boasted as potentially leading the next Dail.
D. As per point C, this means thousands upon thousands of voters in the North voted Sinn Fein into power making Michelle O’Neill First Minister Designate. Sadly it seems Unionists, who speak of moving on, paint members of Sinn Fein with a brush simply because family members were IRA volunteers. That, however, does not mean Michelle O’Neill is in the IRA or ever has been.
To say no party should work with murderers (meaning Sinn Fein) ignores the fact that many within the DUP were members of Vanguard, and some Unionist politicians associate themselves with current Loyalist terrorists who are still armed and endangering peace. The PUP quite literally is the political wing of the UVF with all Unionist parties seemingly taking advice and direction from the Loyalist Communities Council, an umbrella group for active, armed Loyalist terrorists. Perhaps Loyalism and Unionism should fulfil their own promises set out in the GFA before slandering and sullying the good names of families simply because family members dared to fight a fight even successive Southern Irish governments were afraid to fight.
The IRA took on an occupying force. That force was a professional army with many in its command eventually showing respect for their adversaries, the IRA. Sinn Fein took on peace, along with the IRA, and holds that peace dear to this day, which is more than can be said for Loyalists and Unionists.
Today’s Sinn Fein has evolved into a party that strives to protect peace while Unionist parties are happy to sit back and allow Loyalist terrorists to hold the threat of death over everything that goes on in this country of ours. It’s about time some home truths were told to Unionists and Loyalists, and it’s about time they started listening because nationalists and Republicans are genuinely growing tired of the holier-than-thou attitude of some within Unionism who really should know better and who should look into their own closets before bringing up the past. The IRA fought against Loyalist paramilitaries of many names and guises/ Those paramilitaries had the ear of and the help of the British army, the RUC, British intelligence, and had the assistance of British special forces like Robert Nirac. The difference between the British/Loyalist war and the IRA/Republican war was the IRA was fighting to end the British occupation of the 6 Counties in the North East of Ireland….the Loyalist/British war was against the Irish Catholic population of those Counties.
Our history was a war, a war which the British government call a civil war, a civil war in which the British government chose a side. The IRA chose to fight back against what were overwhelming odds of an occupying force. We hear all the time that war is a disgusting, a grievous dirty thing. I guess only those who fought against Irish Catholics, Nationalists and Republicans deserve to be shown mercy in the history books.
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