Sinn Fein has failed to send even one representative to the latest meeting of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly – at the Brighton hotel where the IRA bombed Margaret Thatcher.
The Grand Hotel which hosts this week’s meeting of the parliamentary body was the scene of the 1984 bomb attack on Conservative Party leader and British PM Thatcher.
She survived the attack led by bomber Patrick Magee but five people died and many more were injured.
Padraig Mac Lochlainn, a Sinn Fein member of the Dublin parliament, has informed the Assembly that his party’s members are all needed for Presidential election duties in the Republic.
The Assembly has brought together members of the Irish and British Parliaments for the past 20 years.
The choice of the Brighton venue did cause some discomfort for the British Conservative party as well as Sinn Fein but they are represented at the Grand Hotel this week.
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Lord John Cope, co-chair of the Assembly, was in the hotel when the bomb exploded. He said: “Obviously, all of us who were here have memories of that event. It was traumatic and you don’t forget things like that.
“I lost friends, but I don’t want to go into it. The fact of the matter is that a lot of people, in Northern Ireland and elsewhere, have to go to places where terrible things took place. Life has to go on.”
Irish co-chair Joe McHugh, a Fine Gael deputy, said: “There is a lot of symbolism around the choice of venues in Ireland and elsewhere. I would hope that this is a symbol of a terrible past, one that we don’t want to go down again.”
Lord Cope maintained that the Assembly remains a valuable opportunity for politicians from both sides of the Irish Sea to meet each other.
He also stated that the Assembly now concentrates less on Northern Ireland and more on the relationships between the islands.
McHugh added: “The current Eurozone crisis highlights the importance of Ireland’s relationship with Britain. It is important that we build on it.”
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Switch to the desktop site to post a comment.seanomelbourne | Oct 27, 2011, 06:34 PM EDT
How can an ex British soldier not accept violence as a tool it sounds like an oxymoron (or hypocritical).
FallsRNat | Oct 25, 2011, 12:55 PM EDT
sirpeter - it's great news to have u back, for a week or so, i thought that you had gone away, out on the hustings. where do you get all this old sh*t about what really happened here in belfast, reading adams, coogan et al, i suppose. if you are trying to say in a very longwinded way that the PIRAs mantra of 'brits' out, truly meant NI prods out then i can understand their reasoning for their own campaign of murder (however, unlike you i will never accept violence as a political tool), do think that that generations going back 400 years could be ordered out of their country of birth. As i said before when americans (99% whose families have been their only 250 years) gives the US back to the US Indians then I will start to take the Irish american cries for a UI seriously.
sirpeter | Oct 24, 2011, 07:59 PM EDT
FallsRNat.We will start acknowledging the wrongdoings on our side.War is a dirty business and at that stage bad things are bound to happen.But don't try and make things out like both sides were equaly wrong.The Prods were quite happy treating Catholics like dirt for hundreds of years.That is until the civil rights marchers were shot off the streets by the British army much to the glee of the Prods Let's be fair about it.If your government ban you from having a peaceful march and then the army shoot you for doing it anyway.How do you protest then?It's only natural to fight back.It's up to the instigator of violence to acknowledge their BLATANT part in the massacres of their Catholic neighbours first.Tell your buddies to suck it up and maybe your Catholic neighbours will forget the yearly Catholic house burnings since 1690.The Prods wrongdoings are a long list you know.BUT I will admit the IRA should have been more careful at times.Those horses were totally innocent.
pilib04 | Oct 24, 2011, 07:08 PM EDT
Still have heard nothing of substance regarding the British massacre at Ballymurphy, 9th and 11th August, 1971. The killing of 11 civilians by the British Army.
seanomelbourne | Oct 24, 2011, 05:26 PM EDT
fallsrnat wants an inquiry into Teebane etc. but his british masters refuse him,I wonder why? the Brighton bombing succeeded in forcing Britain to negotiating table.
Springfield9 | Oct 24, 2011, 03:08 PM EDT
Even the Nazis figured out the IRA were buck eejits.
GraydonWilson | Oct 24, 2011, 02:07 PM EDT
"Mrs. Thatcher will now realise that Britain cannot occupy our country and torture our prisoners and shoot our people in their own streets and get away with it. Today we were unlucky, but remember we only have to be lucky once. You will have to be lucky always. Give Ireland peace and there will be no more war."
FallsRNat | Oct 24, 2011, 01:10 PM EDT
will gerry be visiting Teebane, Shankill, Enniskellen after all if they truly are a party of the people then they will be more than willing to acknowledge their duplicity in the massacres of their protestant neighbours. Trouble with your analogy cillowen is that saying sorry is only a one way street for you, come here & visit the Shankill, tell the prods why WE shouldn't be held accountantable ourselves.
cillowen | Oct 24, 2011, 11:14 AM EDT
the queen should visit the site of the bloody sunday massacre with new prez gallagher - such a move would nicely round things out for all to feel, the millions to one killing comparison between two noble countries.