We had been warned repeatedly, yet when it comes, the raw tragedy of so many people killed and injured for no reason and without warning tears the heart. This blog joins the endless list of those expressing shock and sympathy. Having lived through the years of the IRA campaigns there is a cold familiarity of the sequence as it unfolds. Not bombs now or even guns, but vehicles used as weapons. But with the same outcome measured in human suffering.
Yet across the Irish Sea there is today an event remarkable for all the opposite reasons; the funeral of Martin McGuiness. He began as a terrorist commander and ended as a statesman whose drive to bring peace to Northern Ireland enhanced the lives of all who live not just in the island of Ireland but across the British Isles. The mourners told the story. From the illustrious to the humble, Catholic and Protestant, Unionist and Republican, together assembled to pay tribute to a remarkable life. Thousands died in the Troubles, yet with peace at least there is meaning.
If Britain wants to give meaning to yesterday’s victims it must do all in its power, not simply to defeat IS, but to ensure there is a fair and just settlement across the Middle East so that fighting ends and the Shia, Sunni and Kurdish populations each receive a homeland which they can themselves independently rule, according to their own traditions, without fear of each other. If we fail in that endeavour we will see more of the suffering and violence spread to our shores.