Aileen Quinton: I call those who murdered my mother in the Enniskillen bomb Sinn Fein/IRA because it explains the situation more fully

A letter from Aileen Quinton:

I had a surreal and disorienting experience on Monday when I did a BBC radio interview about the former leader of the Royal College of Nursing becoming the Sinn Fein candidate for Fermanagh and South Tyrone.

That is the constituency which includes the site of the 1987 IRA Poppy Day massacre in which a student nurse, and a retired nurse and her retired ambulance driver husband and my mother, a retired nursing sister, were all murdered.

The issue that arose during the radio interview was about the nature of the relationship between Sinn Fein and the Provisional IRA, and what we are allowed to say about it.

Sinn Fein has long been the political wing of the IRA, with a good bit of overlap. Hence the umbrella term, SF/IRA, which is how I and many other people see it.

It is how I described those who murdered my mum because it explains the situation more fully. I now see that the political debate website Slugger O’Toole has banned contributors from using the term Sinn Fein/IRA on their site.

Sinn Fein’s leaders refuse to denounce PIRA terrorism, indeed have commemorated and eulogised its terrorists and its NI leader has said there was “no alternative”.

Teresa Villiers in the Commons in 2015, 17 years after the Belfast Agreement when reporting on a report by the security services told us that Sinn Fein still takes its orders from the IRA Army Council. As late as 2020 Garda Commissioner Drew Harris said it was the opinion of the force that one still exerts control over the other. Surely this means we can’t be forced to think that only one wing of Sinn Fein is pro IRA. It is, in my opinion, a key part of its brand.

As time goes by fewer and fewer Sinn Fein activists have been actual IRA terrorists but that is about all that has changed. It is simply not true that Sinn Fein representatives have no connection to the IRA.

They may not have ever been members but that doesn’t mean no connection, given that they are in an organisation that the security forces believe is overseen by the IRA 'army council' . Then we come to the issue of support.

As far as I am concerned membership of Sinn Fein and voting for Sinn Fein is supporting the IRA, even if some of those who do, may not approve wholeheartedly.

When I donated to Oxfam I was supporting what it did, even those things that came to light that I disapproved of.

When I buy a lottery ticket I am supporting all the groups that are given money, even those that I would consider a bit dodgy.

Even those politicians and public representatives who are not in Sinn Fein, including those who I accept disapprove of the IRA, who went to the funeral of IRA leader Martin McGuiness were actually giving some support to the IRA by sanitising its evil and by supporting its acceptability narrative by that act of attending.

Why is it becoming verboten to say that Sinn Fein supports the organisation that it takes its orders from, says there was no alternative to and eulogises its terrorists or to say that joining or voting for Sinn Fein is contributing to that support?

What about the opinion that even those who supposedly don't approve the IRA can't be that disgusted with it or its slaughter if they are prepared to commit any acts of support?

Are we even allowed to think that?

Aileen Quinton, Fermanagh