Northern Ireland

The “indictment” Evil - On This Day in 1974

We have seen not only the fearful fruits of “indictment against a whole people” in this blood-drenched century but also the utter pointlessness of it

Catholics were targeted in sectarian violence during the Belfast Pogrom of 1920 - 1922.
Catholics were targeted in sectarian violence during the Belfast Pogrom of 1920 - 1922.

December 7 1974

“I do not know the method”, said Edmund Burke once, in a speech recommending reconciliation with the American colonists, “of drawing up an indictment against an whole people”. Like most of the utterances of the great Irishman it contains a thought which is as timeless in its applicability as it is fruitful to contemplate. Had the peoples of these islands given it more practical consideration our mutual history might have taken a different course.

Locked behind prejudices as symbolic and as profitless as the walls of Derry we have gone our separate ways for centuries, enveloped in a comforting blanket of inclusive hate, and unwilling to allow that among those not of our camp there have always been the guiltless and the brave and the honest and the people of goodwill. To be sure, it has suited various groups from time to time to support and even to embellish our views on one side or the other, but in the last decades of the twentieth century we have arrived at an era when the use of propaganda has been too plainly exposed for us to continue to believe in it.

What is more, we have seen not only the fearful fruits of “indictment against an whole people” in this blood-drenched century but also the utter pointlessness of it, and the irony of political necessity which had subsequently to reverse the trend and make friends and allies of the formerly indicted.

Never was this more vividly exemplified than in Anglo-Irish history with its special twist of sectarian bigotry. The very air of these islands reverberates with the echo of old slogans. But if we are to be honest we shall have to admit that the solution to our problems cannot be found in any of them.

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During the forty-seven years of Stormont rule and very directly as the result of IRA violence in recent years, the Catholic population of this area has been comprehensively “indicted” as being violent and generally subversive by Unionists and, for long enough, by the British media. The fact that the violence was directed from areas where large numbers of Catholics lived supported the canard, even though Catholics have been so continuously the victims of attacks on property as well as murder.

Irish News editorial on how the whole Catholic population of the North was being punished and tainted by unionists and the British media by the actions of a small minority, members of the IRA.