Perspectives

Today the Times reports that the murderors of Jean McConville were Marian and Dolours Price, plus - they always insisted - a third, anonymous person. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Price sisters argued that that person was the one who fired the fatal shot - but, as they admit that each one of the three fired one shot into poor, innocent McConville, this attempt to shift blame looks pretty pathetic in moral terms.

I had not heard of the Price sisters before today. It turns out that they were part of a group of people who carried out the Old Bailey bombing in 1973, in which at least 200 people were injured, (and a second bombing was intended, although it did not in the end occur, so who knows how much bloody mayhem they were willing to create). Furthermore, Marian was later involved in an attack on the Massereene Barracks in which two British soldiers were shot dead.

From my perspective, these women are violent fanatics, cold-blooded murderors of innocent people and there is no political cause that can ever justify their actions. But the gulf that lies between my perspective and that of supporters of the IRA is immense. Search for the two sisters on the internet and you are instantly met with articles that sympathise not with the sisters, but rather their hapless victims, and articles that express outrage at the sisters' - to my mind, all too brief - incarceration.

A letter written by Dolours in prison seems equally unable to imagine another perspective. Rather than expressing regret for her dreadful actions, she bemoans being deprived of the opportunity to live a full life, to have children and to love. She writes without irony, apparently unable to recognise that these were the precise consequences of her actions against Jean McConville - and, of course, not only did she deprive that poor woman of all opportunities, she deprived her children of a happy childhood.

Well, my perspective is that, no matter the cause, terrorist violence is never, ever the solution. Once the decision to commit violence indiscriminately, targeting a civilian population or someone you merely suspect of being against you, your cause has lost its legitimacy. No justification you produce about how cruel your opponents are or how rigged their system may be can ever make killing acceptable. If a new order has its foundations in bloodshed, it is corrupted and indelibly stained.

And, in the specific case of Jean McConville, a terrible, cruelty was committed and it was utterly wrong.