Michelle, saying Troubles violence was inevitable endangers future generations

Michelle O’Neill saying there was ‘no alternative’ to violence is a cruel, flippant, and callous excuse for the hurt that was inflicted on innocent families during our casually-referred-to Troubles.

Every day in life we are faced with alternatives. We all have choices to make. Some choices solve whatever problem we are facing that day. Others turn out to be not the best choice and we have to live with the consequences. That’s life.

But using violence is not an obligation, Michelle.

Violence is a choice, made freely by the person involved.

The person who murdered my brother John had a choice. He could have walked away at any moment before entering my ice cream parlour on October 11, 1988.

But he didn’t.

He made the choice to shoot John four times, making sure that his preferred option of violence would be successful and that John would die that night. The choice was made to also shoot and seriously injure two young customers that night who posed no physical threat whatsoever.

So please don’t attempt to rewrite history or sanitise the gunman’s actions that night, Michelle.

I’m sure the person who killed John has faced a multitude of alternatives during his life and one of the choices he freely made was the path of violence. So please don’t make excuses for him.

And as I have said many times before, I do not take sides. Every mother’s tears are the same. So I have no problem in saying that any person, no matter what official or paramilitary uniform they wore, who selected the alternative of deliberate violence as their preferred option, cannot absolve themselves now by saying they had no alternative.

Choosing violence is not the answer. It achieves nothing but heartache for those left behind.

And your flippant ‘no alternative’ comment, Michelle, is not only insensitive to victims and their families, but it is dangerous.

It has the potential to teach a new generation that it is okay to choose violence if they can justify it in their impressionable young minds as the only alternative.

All politicians should choose their words more carefully if they really care about reconciliation, and ensuring that history and the mistakes of the past are not handed down to our children and grandchildren.

George Larmour, Belfast

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