No VIP treatment for loyalist victim’s families

THE brutal killing of Robert McCartney by republicans in Belfast following a bar room brawl provoked an outcry that was heard all the way to the White House.

His family were taken to Washington twice to meet with the most influential politicians in the USA, including senators Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton, culminating in a meeting with President Bush.

I take the view that the McCartney killing was used cynically to prolong direct rule in the North. Despite the politicising of Mr McCartney’s death, his family are to be commended for the dignified manner in which they pursued justice for their brother. Like civilised people everywhere, I hope their quest for justice is satisfied.

Since the killing of Mr McCartney, two Catholic schoolchildren, Michael McIlveen and Thomas Devlin, were randomly attacked and murdered by loyalist murder gangs.

The families of these two boys were not invited to meet Bush or influential senators on Capitol Hill.

However, the family of Michael McIlveen were not totally ignored by politicians. Roy Gillespie, a DUP councillor, reminded the bereaved family that their murdered son would not go to heaven because he was a Catholic. These ignorant and insensitive remarks pollute the good name of Protestantism.

Such comments are a sober reminder of the journey still to travel to bring about reconciliation on this island.

With a wonderful Christian intellectual and spiritual tradition that gave us Swift, Tone, Yeats, and Hyde, how did we end up with the likes of Cllr Gillespie?

Tom Cooper

23 Delaford Lawn

Knocklyon

Dublin 16