We must unite to end the cycle of violence

BARRY McElduff’s callous mockery of the Kingsmill victims has unwittingly highlighted a question that goes to the very heart of our future in Northern Ireland and across this island: will we focus on building relationships and uniting people, or will we perpetuate the hatred and mistakes of the past, deepening our divisions instead?

Kingsmill was the most terrible of crimes and it was, despite their denial, carried out by the IRA. It was one of many atrocities carried out by that movement, whose position is that, while it regrets the tragedies and hurt, it feels its actions were necessary and justified.

By that logic, as a society, we would need to accept that the actions of loyalist paramilitaries and members of the police and Army who acted outside the law were also defensible. Our position on this point will determine the course of our future and whether there is potential for more conflict.

When I asked the late Maurice Hayes about his view of republican violence, he told me: “Trevor, there was nothing achieved through violence that could not otherwise have been achieved through peaceful means.”

Twenty years after the Good Friday Agreement, it’s surely time to start rebuilding the relationships on this island that we got so badly wrong in the past.

The crucial foundation for reconciling our society is a shared recognition that criminal violence was always unnecessary, wrong and unjustified, from wherever it came, and a clear commitment that it must never be used again.

On that basis, we can have a genuine, full and open discussion about what is possible to support the construction of good relationships, whether in Northern Ireland, or across this whole island.

Then, at last, we will be able to say with sincerity to the families of Kingsmill, La Mon, Greysteel, Loughinisland, Narrow Water and so many others, that what happened to you will never happen again

TREVOR RINGLAND Holywood, Co Down