No respect for those who venerate a killer

Republicans make much of demanding respect, especially when it comes to their commemoration of their dead. But respect does not flow in only one direction. If it means anything it must be reciprocal.

How then can former IRA members and current Sinn Fein members even contemplate holding a memorial service tomorrow at Milltown Cemetery for Thomas Begley, the IRA man who was killed when carrying out the Shankill bombing 25 years ago this week?

That bombing killed nine other people who were in Frizzell’s fish shop going about their mundane Saturday lunchtime shopping. It was a grotesque massacre of the innocents and this week there have been several events, including ones attended by cross-community audiences who felt it necessary to continue to mark their abhorrence of the killings.

Even the most superficial examination of the bombing shows that the IRA had a total disregard for the lives of anyone, including Begley and his accomplice Sean Kelly who was seriously injured.

The supposed target was a UDA office above the fish shop but the 11-second fuse meant there was little hope of anyone in the shop escaping. In the event, the UDA targets were not even in the office.

And the IRA planners knew fine well that whatever the outcome, vicious loyalist retaliation would inevitably follow against equally innocent Catholics, and so it did, causing another 14 lost lives.

So on all fronts there is no reason to venerate a man who carried out a barbarous act. As one of the people bereaved by the Shankill bombing says, tomorrow’s commemoration is dancing on the graves of the victims, and seldom can that sentiment have rung truer.

There will be notable exceptions at the Milltown event — the Begley family who, according to Thomas’s elderly father, have been spending this week going to church, praying for their dead family member and also for those he killed.

Unlike the IRA, the Begley family have apologised for the Shankill bombing and there is no reason to doubt Mr Begley’s assertion that had he known what his son was going to do that day 25 years ago, he would have chained him to his bed to prevent him leaving the house.

Anyone with the slightest moral compass or human compassion will view tomorrow’s republican commemoration as repugnant and agree that republicans demand for respect