McConville a reminder of dark days

Recent arrests remind us, lest we forget, of the tragic conflict that engulfed the North for three decades. Taoiseach Kenny is correct in reminding us that this story is about a murdered woman and her bereaved orphan children.

Unionist politicians tempted to feel smug should reflect on their role in starting the Northern conflict. Many of them conveniently forget that their quasi apartheid policy of a ‘Protestant State for a Protestant People’ relegated the minority in their community to a second class status. When the oppressed community threw off its shackles it was met with an enraged and violent response, with Rev Ian Paisley the rabble-rouser in chief.

As Yeats put it — “Great hatred, little room. They fed the heart on bitterness, the heart’s grown brutal with the fare”.