BBC
Radio Leicester Thought for the Day
©
John Denney 18 March 2005
Seven
weeks ago, Catherine, Paula, Gemma, Claire and Donna McCartney were ordinary
young women going about their ordinary lives.
But on 30th January, an extraordinary and awful incident
changed everything for them. Their
brother Robert, an ordinary young man, got into a fight and was beaten and
stabbed to death by a mob of thirty men outside Magennis’s bar, an ordinary
Belfast pub.
Once
they had absorbed the impact of that terrible event, these five sisters and
Robert’s fiancée vowed to see that justice would be done. So they pressed for
arrests and prosecutions of the perpetrators, alleged to be members of the
I.R.A. But the reality of the situation
in nationalist Belfast is that there is a climate of silence in the face of
intimidation. For the I.R.A. has refused
to disband despite the political accords made seven years ago on Good Friday
1998. They have adopted gangster habits,
running smuggling operations, robbing banks, and laundering the proceeds of
crime. Their members, just like the
Chicago gangsters of the 1930s, defy the law, secure that no one dares to
inform on them. This time, they
expected, literally, to get away with murder.
Yesterday,
Robert McCartney’s sisters were entertained for St Patrick’s Day in the White
House by President Bush, and the leaders of the I.R.A.-linked political party
Sinn Féin weren’t - for the first time in many years. The sisters’ courageous campaign has been
taken up by world statesmen, and the I.R.A. is under pressures never before
faced to disband and cease their gangster existence. And in a horrifying proof that the I.R.A.
hasn’t been able yet to face up to 21st Century realities, they even
offered to shoot their members involved in the murder in a wild attempt to
avert the calamity they have brought on their movement.
So
the sisters’ campaign for justice for their brother may have deeper, more
far-reaching consequences. Maybe it’s
the kick-start needed to close yesterday’s chapter of Irish history and open
tomorrow’s. But it will take courage of
the quality of Private Beharry’s to achieve this[1]. Evil men, though, aren’t easily discouraged.
What
they need is a change of heart. There’s
a bible-based word for that. Jesus calls
on everyone – you and me as well – to repent[2]. It means, “Think again. Start afresh.
Begin a new chapter.”
So
the big question for the I.R.A. is “will they – can they - repent?” And the big question for you is “will you?”