Ex-IRA man’s ‘sickening’ stance

Friday, March 19, 2010

WHAT can be more sickening than the call by Martin McGuinness from the USA for Cardinal Brady to consider his position, ie, resign.

While indeed the cardinal may well have do so, having been caught up in a culture, system and organisation that, to say the least, dealt very improperly with abuse cases in the past, it is McGuinness’s comments that add fuel to the fire of an already bad situation.

By his own admission, McGuinness was once an IRA commander and he must explain to us why his organisation saw fit to kill children at times and left many more as orphans, grieving and stunted for life by the loss of parents, siblings etc.

The IRA also traded in human proxy bombs on several occasions, killed Protestants in a sectarian way and executed its own miscreants. McGuinness might also understand that Section 17 of the Offences Against the State Act 1939, in operation here, prohibits the swearing of an oath to conceal the commission of a crime.

This may or may not apply to Seán Brady, but its specific original aim was to prohibit the secret swearing of oaths which the IRA was wont to do. Talk about those in glasshouses.

And when McGuinness talks about openness and transparency, is he happy that his party leader, Gerry Adams, has acted at all times with probity in a similar type situation, and is he happy with Mr Adams’s constant denials that he was ever in the IRA, or the supposed thin line in the past that was supposed to separate Sinn Féin from the IRA.

Brendan Cafferty
Creggs Road
Ballina
Co Mayo

This story appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Friday, March 19, 2010