I had my twice-weekly chat with Pat McArt earlier today, and we somehow landed on a topic I hadn’t thought about before. It sprang from an article by Denis Bradley in The Irish News (the newspaper that once loved me but it’s all over now). He was talking about the search for truth about what happened during the Troubles.
Bradley notes, correctly, that most of the conflict of the Troubles was fought in working-class areas, and seems to imply that middle-class judgement therefore may be simplistic. On the question finding out the truth about informers, he believes it could/would shatter families. If it was revealed that your son- or daughter – was not in fact a committed republican but an informer, the revelation of this could shatter the family.
I hadn’t thought of this before, and it struck me at the time as insightful, and I more or less defended it in my discussion with Pat. On mature reflection,as they say – in fact, after a conversation with someone whose judgement I respect – I think that this suggestion that the truth about the identify of informers be shrouded,to protect the family of the tout, is…well, middle-class. Infantalising of the families.
Once you start saying that people are not capable of handling the truth, you’re on a slippery road. It suggests they don’t understand things in the round, that they’re fragile and vulnerable. Perhaps. But I think if one of my family were a tout, I’d rather go to my grave knowing that rather than going to my grave ignorant. Life deals us some appallingly nasty hands, but as grown-up human beings we deserve to be told the facts that impact us. Otherwise, you soon find yourself following a ‘Not-in-front-of-the-children’ line.The truth can hurt and hurt deeply, but it can also set you free.
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