The recent murders of two British Soldiers, Mark Quinsey and Patrick Azimkar and the murder of Stephen Carroll, a member of the PSNI has shocked the entire country. The shock unforunately is more due to the fact that it has been so many years since such dreadful things have happened.
The people who committed these crimes are not only criminals, but psychotic criminals. They live in a world of self deception, a world where they can tell themselves that they are 'fighting' for some sacred political principle.
There is no "sacred principle", political, religious or secular, that justifies murdering people. The wife of Stephen Carroll spoke eloquently about her husband. She spoke of her sheer disbelief. She spoke of the absolute futility of these murderous actions, when she said, "all my husband will get, all anyone gets at the end of this is a piece of ground six foot by six foot".
Too many people are in the ground because of this fanatical desire for a "United Ireland". The very idea that a country can be "united" on the back of cold blooded murder is crazy.
Martin McGuiness described the people who did this as traitors. (I hasten to add, I am not a supporter of Sinn Féin or any political party), They are traitors, but not just to some political ideal. They are traitors to everything that is Irish, to our heritage, to our culture and most especially to our identity as Irish people.
An Ireland built on the graves of those who have been murdered is not an Ireland I want to belong to. An Ireland built on the ashes of families destroyed by violence is not an Ireland I want to belong to.
We have to be honest and admit that in the past we have glamorised violence, glamorised the "struggle" for freedom. It's time for us as a people and a Government to formally renounce violence. I believe we should do this, by formally giving up any aspiration to a United Ireland until all violence connected with this aspiration ceases permanently.
We should make all violent efforts to achieve a United Ireland completely and utterly counterproductive.
Finally, I recommend taking a look at a globe. See if you can find Ireland. This is a tiny island, in global terms it is no bigger than a cabbage patch. Do we really want more people to die for this tiny piece of ground. We are in danger of allowing our tiny island become nothing more than a graveyard, where we bury not only the needlessly dead, but everything that is good and valuable about being Irish.
Fr. Martin
