Johnson once again shows his disdain for Irish matters

World of Politics with Harry McGee

After half a century, almost a lifetime, a thin beam of justice seemed finally to appear for the families of the 10 people shot dead by British Army paratroopers in Ballymurphy, Belfast in August 1971.

The Belfast Coroner found that all 10 were innocent and that nine had been shot by British Army paratroopers, at a time when internment had been introduced. There was uncertainty about who shot the tenth person, with the possibility of a loyalist paramilitary not being totally excluded.

Among those who had been killed were a mother of eight, and a parish priest. The Coroner said she was convinced the priest was a peacemaker who was shot in the back.

Last week his brother, Patsy, now in his 80s said: “It was nice to hear that. He was a peacemaker. For 50 years, my brother was accused of being a gunman, which was all untrue. I knew it was untrue, but people didn’t know it.”

It’s terrible to think of the legacy of such acts, how people have to carry that sense of injustice with them for a lifetime. We have seen it with the victims of the Stardust Fire, or the various State institutions that incarcerated children (and expectant mothers); of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings; and indeed, of the 1971 Arms Plot trail.

The response of political parties in this State to the Ballymurphy verdict was uniform. The Taoiseach Micheál Martin said he hoped it would bring some solace to the family survivors who have spent so many fruitless years campaigning for justice. Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney referred to it shining a light of justice on a particularly dark era in Northern history.

The response from Sinn Féin was more flinty. Michelle O’Neill spoke about it being murder. The party leader Mary Lou McDonald pointed to the imminent move by the British Government to give amnesty to those accused of criminal acts in the period before the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.

Unfortunately, the response of the British Government was also uniform. It was not surprising that there was an angry reaction to Boris Johnson’s apology to the families.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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