UnHerd ✒ Republican and Loyalist paramilitaries are still unable to acknowledge the terrible wrongs they did.

Jenny McCartney

Families who were bereaved or injured during the Troubles in Northern Ireland face a very painful truth today. It is that, along with the private loss which they constantly bear, they are now very likely to find themselves continuously wounded and insulted afresh by the ongoing public conversation. In the twenty-two years since the Belfast Agreement was signed, that situation has not got better, but substantially worse.

Take, for example, the discussion that emerged some weeks ago when Billy Hutchinson, the leader of a small loyalist party called the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP), launched his memoir, My Life in Loyalism, with a number of press interviews. Hutchinson’s previous career was in the Ulster Volunteer Force, a loyalist paramilitary organisation — linked to the PUP — which was primarily known for brutal sectarian killing.

Hutchinson’s public profile rose in line with the ‘peace process’ and his support for a loyalist ceasefire. But back in 1974 he was convicted of a UVF double murder, in which he and another UVF man shot dead two young Catholic half-brothers, Michael Loughran, 18, and Edward Eric Morgan, 27. 

Continue reading @ UnHerd.

Will Anyone Ever Say ‘Sorry’ In Northern Ireland?

UnHerd ✒ Republican and Loyalist paramilitaries are still unable to acknowledge the terrible wrongs they did.

Jenny McCartney

Families who were bereaved or injured during the Troubles in Northern Ireland face a very painful truth today. It is that, along with the private loss which they constantly bear, they are now very likely to find themselves continuously wounded and insulted afresh by the ongoing public conversation. In the twenty-two years since the Belfast Agreement was signed, that situation has not got better, but substantially worse.

Take, for example, the discussion that emerged some weeks ago when Billy Hutchinson, the leader of a small loyalist party called the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP), launched his memoir, My Life in Loyalism, with a number of press interviews. Hutchinson’s previous career was in the Ulster Volunteer Force, a loyalist paramilitary organisation — linked to the PUP — which was primarily known for brutal sectarian killing.

Hutchinson’s public profile rose in line with the ‘peace process’ and his support for a loyalist ceasefire. But back in 1974 he was convicted of a UVF double murder, in which he and another UVF man shot dead two young Catholic half-brothers, Michael Loughran, 18, and Edward Eric Morgan, 27. 

Continue reading @ UnHerd.

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