THE COMING decade of centenary commemorations must be “handled sensitively” or else it will be hijacked by supporters of violence. This was the message yesterday of Northern Ireland Secretary of State Owen Paterson to the Joint Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement.
Centenaries this decade include the Ulster Covenant, the 1913 Lockout, the Battle of the Somme and the Easter Rising. The committee includes members of the Oireachtas and Northern Ireland members of the House of Commons.
An Oireachtas spokesman said this was the first public engagement between a Northern Ireland secretary of state and a parliamentary committee at Leinster House.
Mr Paterson said approaching the commemorations as an “educational” exercise would serve to correct “facile” or “simplistic” interpretations of history.
He highlighted the importance of “the two political establishments” in Britain and Ireland working together to “help set the tone” of the commemorations. If this did not happen, “there is a danger that people who do not have such a benign view could hijack them”.
Frank Feighan TD (Fine Gael) said there was concern “that some of these commemorations may be taken over by hard-line people from both traditions”.
On British-Irish co-operation in general, he said he would “love to hear” the views of committee member and abstentionist Sinn Féin MP for West Tyrone, Pat Doherty, in the House of Commons.
“You’ll get them here,” Mr Doherty replied.
Aodhán Ó Ríordáin TD (Labour) was the first of several committee members at the meeting to raise the 1974 Dublin-Monaghan bombings. After almost 40 years, the bereaved relatives “feel completely let down by successive British governments”. The families wanted access to British state papers for information on the background to the bombings.
Others who raised the issue included Joe O’Reilly TD (FG), Seán Crowe TD (SF) and Senator Mary White (Fianna Fáil). Mr Paterson said foreign secretary William Hague had pointed out at the time of the queen’s visit that the British government had “made available the synopsis that is relevant to this case”.
On meeting the relatives, he said: “I am happy to meet anybody but there is a certain point where you raise false hopes.” There was no “golden nugget” of information to be found, he added.
He pointed out that the inquiry into the 1997 killing of loyalist Billy Wright at the Maze had cost £30 million but had not established how the guns used in the attack had been smuggled into the prison.
Mr Paterson said the book Lost Lives by David McKittrick and others showed that agents of the British state were responsible for 10 per cent of the deaths in the Troubles, loyalists were responsible for 30 per cent and republicans for 60 per cent.
Joanna Tuffy TD (Lab) was elected to chair the committee.
