IRA had little choice but to activate their own justice system

I am a survivor of child sex abuse and I am deeply upset with the public conversation about abuse in the Republican community.

Anger is an inevitable consequence of abuse but it does no good at all to lash out at the very people who tried to help deal with the abuse. The anger is only appropriately directed at the person who committed the abuse, but even then lashing out does no healing, I know from direct personal experience.

What I am more upset about is the attack on the IRA and Sinn Fein by people living in the South. My question to all of you is, where were you when your countrymen and women were being beaten, killed, denied jobs and housing, and had their lives destroyed over years, with the active collusion of the RUC?

The Irish Catholics in the North are a traumatised group of people and the trauma is not in the past; it is ongoing. They did not choose to be governed by the UK; they were forced into it as a sacrifice so the Irish in the South could be free. And it was the IRA who did their best to protect your brothers and sisters in the North at the risk of their own lives, while all of you sat here comfortably not involved.

The IRA did the best they could in really difficult circumstances to deal with abuse issues. They didn’t know what they were doing and failed, but they had no choice. You don’t turn to the very people who are oppressing you for help, when you know they will use it against you.

Janet Thornton

Toames

Macroom

Co Cork