Opinion

Letters - Story behind The Secret is a truth worth telling

James Nesbitt as Colin Howell in the final episode of The Secret
James Nesbitt as Colin Howell in the final episode of The Secret James Nesbitt as Colin Howell in the final episode of The Secret

Labour MP Louise Haigh’s intervention when speaking about the TV drama The Secret does nothing for the Clarke, Buchanan, Howell and Elkin  families that she claims to defend. Their tragedy has long been in the public domain and the notion that it should be unviewable is censorious.

Yes there are victims of the actions of these murderers but imposing silence or giving them editorial control of the public media is no answer to their trauma. Family secrets that cannot be spoken about are the royal road to abuse. This is a truth worth telling in the six counties.

The addiction to victimology is its companion piece in the stagnation of Stormont politics. John Larkin was right to call for the end of Troubles cases and he might have gone further and called for the end of public posts dedicated to sustaining ancient grudges. 

The Secret was a fine dramatic achievement which showed us able to have a good look at ourselves. 

JOE HEATLEY


Enfield, London

Celibacy debate not just about priests

Allison Morris (May 19) writes in her article ‘Celibacy in priesthood a matter of public interest’ that it is time for real debate on celibacy in the Catholic Church.

Wouldn’t it be a good idea then for The Irish News, which, as she says, has behaved sympathetically on recent occasions, to sponsor and arrange such a public discussion? Newspapers do things like that.

One of the matters raised would certainly be that the vast majority of people who give up the prospect of marriage and a family of their own are not priests or members of religious orders. They are people who do it to look after other people, family members or others who are in need of their care.

It would be most unkind to say of these good people that theirs is an unnatural life. They are supernaturally generous people. 

What could be argued in such a public discussion though is whether imposing  celibacy on such good people would be unnatural. That is a different question and of course the right one.

DESMOND WILSON


Belfast BT12

Inquests only hope of justice for innocent victims’ families

Inquests normally require evidence and witnesses before verdicts which may point to criminal proceedings. Arlene Foster needs no such formalities. Her pre-election veto on inquest funding, citing the ‘innocent victims’, tells us she must have already sorted who are innocent victims and who are not.

Crown Judge Declan Morgan’s funding request followed a review of 56 cases involving 97 deaths among them 22 cases more than 40 years old. These inquests included victims of controversial killings by the British army, RUC and cases where collusion was charged.

Many grieving families believe their loved ones were not alone murdered, but were then victims of an orchestrated whitewash, where lies were concocted and put out to justify murder. They believe that the legal procedures created to protect innocent victims were perverted to give impunity to British crown forces.

Declan Morgan proposed to complete these inquests in five years, provided the Stormont Executive got him funding from Theresa Villiers. Ms Foster refused to discuss it.

Speaking on BBC, she said “a lot of innocent victims feel that their voice has not been heard recently and there has been an imbalance in relation to state killings as opposed to paramilitary killings”. 

What was she really saying? Take for example the Ballymurphy Massacre families. Their voices have been heard, presumably because their public campaign is their only hope of justice. They have said their family members were innocent victims, shot down for getting in the way as British troopers carried out internment raids in August 1971.They say that inquest testimony and witnesses would exonerate their slain family members.

Why would their loved ones not be as worthy of an inquest as others? Does Ms Foster have some legal grounds to say they were not innocent victims? Is it enough the British army killed them, so they must have been guilty? Does she think that British crown judges like Declan Morgan would be unfair to British crown witnesses? If an inquest proved any legal justification for these killings, would she not deem the money well spent?

Her words seem to follow on directly from British secretary of state Theresa Villiers lecture at Ulster University, earlier this year. She expressed displeasure at what she called a “pernicious counter narrative” about killings by British crown forces between 1968-1998.

In plainer English, the colonial secretary scorns suggestions that Britain bears any blame for killings by British troops, constabulary, the crown’s paid agents, informers and proxies. Her lecture was clearly a declaration of intent to continue stonewalling by withholding witnesses, documents and money.

The election is over. Will Declan Morgan’s proposal now be funded? Will inquests that may reveal inconvenient truths about innocent victims which counter and refute the British narrative continue to be delayed and stonewalled?        

MARTIN GALVIN


Bronx, New York

No amount of ‘purchasing’ can conquer noble cause

May 12 provided a dramatic dichotomy of the mindset of those who claim allegiance to the Irish Republic. Unbroken republicans gathered in the evening sunshine at Séan MacDiarmada’s homestead in north Leitrim to commemorate his execution 100 years ago.

Paddy McAnaney, a local actor, gave a stunningly accurate portrayal of the man who was central to the Rising, his powerful rousing speeches tempered with the sorrow of his final letters to his family. Bernice Swift, with normal gusto, delivered Countess Markievicz’s high praise for her good friend and comrade

Séan which reminded us that he himself had commemorated the centenary of 1798. 

New Sinn Féin’s neo-colonialists had earlier in the day sank once again into their plush seats at Stormont, continuing to administer British rule in the six-counties all in the name of ‘an average industrial wage’. Perhaps they fit neatly into the half who Padraig Pearse asserted had been ‘purchased’.

The previous day’s news reports highlighted one of their ilk’s ‘deep disappointment’ that ‘no information flow’ is forthcoming to the authorities. Surely the incisive mind of MacDiarmada would have questioned the unpatriotic motives of those who continue in the footsteps of Scappaticci and Donaldson, in either, or both, of Pearse’s categories of those who are ‘intimidated’ and/or ‘purchased’ and have urged them not to continue ‘their flow of information’; the like of which led to Séan’s own capture and death?

As the evening sun set westward over the Dartry Mountains republicans took leave of the MacDiarmada homestead reinvigorated that, through this man, a direct lineage to the United Irishmen sustains.

The national reawakening of 2016 brings new hope and drive to those who strive for the establishment of the Irish Republic to which Séan MacDiarmada and so many others devoted their lives. No amount of ‘purchasing’ or ‘intimidating’ by the ‘defenders of this realm’ can ever conquer that noble cause.

P NUGENT


Galbally, Co Tyrone

Intriguing proposition

I mulled over Jim Gibney’s interesting piece ‘Unity of purpose needed among nationalist parties’ (May 11) and reflected on the genius of the oppositional divide between the SDLP and Sinn Féin. My tentative conclusion was the SDLP rejected the IRA activities and Sinn Féin did not. Both claimed the same goal – an Ireland united.

Now the GFA has cleared away the main obstacle to a ‘unity of purpose’. It is an intriguing proposition. Certainly one could see interesting developments. The first one could be that both SF and the SDLP might agree on a shared approach to the ending of partition.

Now that would set the cat among the pigeons. Both parties putting it up to Fianna Fail, Fine Gael to take a pro-active role in the ending of partition. Given the state of the Dáil this may not be the most propitious time to voice this matter, yet that would not obstruct the opening of lines of communication here.

Or is it a case of paying lip service to a vision?

MANUS McDAID


Derry city