Jude Collins believes that the DUP have engaged at shifting the political consensus towards the view of the Troubles as a conflict in which the IRA was the sole cause of bloodshed, than the view that “…the IRA emerged from decades of state discrimination and repression, not vice versa”. He further averts to one obvious Elephant (of many of that convenient and peculiarly Ulster species), that is widely ignored:
As for the PUP, it blames the IRA for IRA violence AND for UVF and UDA violence, since loyalist violence is a reaction and so not really as bad. That’s also why republican decommissioning matters and loyalist decommissioning doesn’t.
Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty