Aoife Moore: Troubles amnesty is yet another blow for Northern Irish families

Boris Johnson's attempts to "draw a line" under the conflict in Northern Ireland is further betrayal of families who have lost so much

File Picture:  Taoiseach Micheál Martin and British prime minister Boris Johnson at  Hillsborough Castle: Picture: Julien Behal Photography

There are almost 4,000 examples of pointless and tragic deaths across Northern Ireland.

Thousands of empty beds and uneaten dinners, thousands of missed moments and life experiences, thousands of motherless children and childless mothers.

The tears shed in Northern Ireland could fill an ocean and now Boris Johnson says it's time to dry up.

A de-facto amnesty, announced this week by the British state, for all who bombed and shot and maimed in the dark years of our wee country, will be implemented, for what Mr Johnson says will "draw a line" under the conflict in Northern Ireland.

While drawing his imaginary line, Mr Johnson will never have to look Kathleen Gillespie in the eye and explain that the death of her husband Patsy, a father of three who pled for his life when IRA killers tied him to a bomb which exploded killing him and five British soldiers, is no longer a criminal offence.

The prime minister will never meet the Dohertys, the Kellys, the Wrays, the McKinneys, and the McGuigans, all who Mark Saville says lost a loved one to Soldier F's gun and tell them that the man who "started lying the moment the shooting stopped" according to one review of the Saville Inquiry, was only carrying out orders, as he mowed down innocent boys and men.

The British government has refused to look the people of Northern Ireland in the eye for 50 years and has confirmed through this final nail in the coffin for justice, that they won't be starting now.

This government, like almost every other British government before them, has shirked its responsibilities to the north, actively hurt the citizens within, and continued to contend that this is all for our own good.

For those who have watched this government closely, a get-out-of-jail-free card would be the obvious answer to this devastating legacy.

Brandon Lewis's contention this initiative is about reconciliation while talking about "vexatious prosecutions" is the starkest version of Tory double-speak imaginable and the north isn't buying it.

There is no truth when there is no reason for the guilty to be truthful and, naturally, the people most affected by this announcement, the people of Northern Ireland, have railed against it and naturally, they have been ignored.

Where do we, in the north, stand now? Where we always did, on our own.

Families who have suffered in dignity through the most horrific circumstances will continue, exhausted, to battle every avenue until all are ultimately closed off.

The British government will do what it can to protect its own veterans, even if it means allowing those who strapped fathers to bombs to live free, and those left behind to fend for themselves.

No one is coming to save us, the north is alone, and when Margaret Thatcher said: "There is no such thing as political murder, political bombing or political violence. There is only criminal murder, criminal bombing and criminal violence," she was wrong, and this Conservative government has proven it.

All the tears in Northern Ireland could fill the ocean, and the victims of the Troubles have been left at sea.