Catholic Primate: Only victims have the right to draw a line under the past

Interview with Sarah Macdonald in the Belfast Telegraph, September 25th, 2023

The leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland has warned that dealing with the legacy of the past is “critical to building a reconciled future”. Archbishop Eamon Martin expressed concerns over the government's controversial Legacy Act, which became law last week.

Speaking after an address at Dublin City University on the Catholic Church and the Irish Civil War, he said: “We have to find some way of allowing the stories of the Troubles to be told in an honest and truthful manner which will allow people to find healing and allow our society to find reconciliation.” He noted that when the bill was introduced to Parliament in June 2021 by Boris Johnson, he said it “would draw a line under the Troubles”.

“I think today's conference shows us you simply cannot do that,” Dr Martin said. “The right to draw that line really rests with the victims.”

The Act, which received Royal Assent last Monday, ends all ongoing inquests or criminal investigations into Troubles-era deaths from May next year.

It also offers conditional amnesty to people accused of murders who cooperate with the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery. The commission is a new body set up by the government to handle investigations. The law is opposed by victims' groups and the main political parties.

The Irish government is considering taking a legal challenge against the law in the European Court of Human Rights. A number of victims' families have already launched court action against it. The High Court was told last Wednesday that 16 judicial review applications had been filed.

Dr Martin addressed the Catholic Historical Society of Ireland's Annual Conference in Dublin over the weekend. He said: “Recent controversy in the North surrounding the Act reminds us the wounds of an unresolved past, particularly a past which involves trauma and loss — almost always fester.

“They hamper the achievement of common purpose and shared endeavour in the present and for the future.

“Addressing the legacy of the past is therefore critical to understanding the present and to building a reconciled future.”

Speaking to the Belfast Telegraph after the conference, the Catholic Primate said if some way was not found to allow people to tell the stories of the Troubles, it would be “extremely difficult to build any kind of shared unity on this island”.

Referring to a paper delivered at the conference by Dr Siobhra Aiken from Queen's University, which examined the “spiritual wounds” and trauma left by the Irish Civil War, the archbishop underlined that adopting “a pool of silence” in an attempt to draw a line under events only ensured feelings would continue to fester.

He added: “In many ways, [this] held back any kind of true progress for decades.

“Those who understand the past more deeply and honestly will be more likely to be open to engage in the work of reconciliation.”