In 1984, Mary Travers was a 23-year-old teacher born and raised in Belfast. Her father, Tom, was a magistrate. That may not seem a dangerous profession, yet the Travers family were Catholics. To the Irish Republican Army (IRA), any Catholics working for the state, especially the justice system, were traitors.
One of the most shocking things about the Troubles, which lasted roughly from the late 1960s until the Good Friday Accords were signed in 1998, was how much violence went on within communities. The IRA killed Catholics who opposed them or who worked with the government; Loyalists killed Protestants who refused to keep quiet about their activities. Both sides also “policed” their own communities, targeting suspected drug dealers or thieves, among others (even though paramilitaries themselves were often involved in criminal syndicates).
The Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN), using data provided by Malcolm Sutton, an independent researcher, and his book, Bear in Mind These Dead, estimates that almost a quarter of the IRA’s victims were Catholics. About the same percentage of Protestants were killed by Loyalist paramilitaries.
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Mary Travers was leaving mass with her parents and sisters on April 8 when an IRA assassination team opened fire. The target was her father, who was shot six times, but
Mary Travers
survived. Her mother also survived, likely because the gunman’s weapon misfired.
A woman, Mary McArdle, was quickly arrested, convicted and sentenced to life for the killing. Police continue to search for the other killers. But this week, a controversy erupted after McArdle — released under the Good Friday Agreement — was named a top adviser to the Sinn Féin Culture Minister Carál Ní Chuilín. Mary’s sister, Ann, gave a heart-wrenching interview to news channel UTV. “I just feel physically sick, disgusted,” she said. “I think about Mary every day. Then I hear one of the people involved in her murder is given a well-paid job at Stormont and it all comes crashing back.”
Ann’s interview is here (haven’t been able to get any video embed plug-ins to work). On the one hand, Sinn Fein insists that McArdle did time and contributed to peace. Yet that is cold-blooded. The paramilitaries on both sides are often the first ones who want to close the door on the past and claim that anyone who wants to talk about “the Troubles” is wasting time. Yet in many ways, victims have given up the most and, on a personal level, received the least. In the Travers family’s case, they haven’t even got justice. And now they must live knowing that someone who helped shoot down a loved one is drawing a tax-pater funded salary at the very top of the province’s government.
It’s not unreasonable to ask Sinn Fein if this is really necessary. Sure, the halls of Stormont are not without other infamous characters. One of McArdle’s staunchest defenders is Gerry Kelly, a member of the legislative assembly who represents North Belfast. Kelly was convicted of helping to set off bombs in London in 1973 and took part in a hunger strike while in prison.
One could argue that barring anyone with a paramilitary past is unworkable. At the same time, allowing anyone to be in government, even when their crimes are so devastating and — in this case — largely unpunished, is equally wrong. Sinn Fein is hanging on to principle (and also continuing to justify, albeit softly, these kinds of attacks) when the party should allow for mercy.
Mercy isn’t a budget line — its a recognition of human pain and loss. And it’s little enough for the family of a slain girl.
Related articles
- A calculated insult to victims (sluggerotoole.com)
- SF urged to rethink killer’s job (bbc.co.uk)
- is it right that you have to pay your killer’s salary? (politics.ie)
- Door now bolted, all inquiries into our past lead to a dead end… (sluggerotoole.com)
