NI Conservatives’ co-chairman, Trevor Ringland, has described a planned event which will glorify the actions of Shankill bomber, Thomas Begley, as ‘astonishingly insensitive’.
“Relatives of the innocent victims of the atrocity will be hugely distressed to see an event go ahead which seems to celebrate someone who took the lives of nine of their loved ones”, Trevor said. “Certainly, the parents and family of Thomas Begley have a right to remember their son, who also lost his life because of a futile, murderous campaign by the IRA. The problem arises because it’s pretty clear that this commemoration will glorify Begley’s role in republican violence and his status as a so-called ‘volunteer’.”
“This is the latest in a series of events which blur the lines between remembering people who lost their lives in the Troubles, because of their tragic and misguided involvement in paramilitary organisations, and glorifying the acts of violence that they committed. As a society, if we are to move on to a genuinely peaceful and hopeful future, we need widespread recognition that every violent act which broke the law during that period in our history was wrong. We cannot allow those who want to apologise for or justify the campaigns of republican or loyalist paramilitaries in the past to go unchallenged, just as we cannot tolerate those who want to perpetrate violence today.”
“If the people who insist on organising such events will not desist, there needs to be a concerted effort to make sure that all of our young people are in no doubt about the mayhem, misery and poverty which such organisations spread in Northern Ireland. We cannot risk another generation being poisoned by ancient, destructive hatreds. That is why it is so important that events like the one planned to celebrate Thomas Begley, or the annual parade which glorifies the loyalist killer, Brian Robinson, do not go unchallenged. We want our young people to live and work for their own benefit and for the benefit of everyone else on these islands, rather than ending up a murderer, dead or behind bars.”