Victims and the redress of historic grievance: shall we forbid them, or not?

A sharp observation from Malachi O’Doherty in yesterday’s Belfast Telegraph that the past is becoming more not less livid, put me in mind of a line from the King James Bible (Luke 18:16), “suffer little children to come unto me” followed by the less familiar and forbid them not”.  With new campaigns springing up it seems that the demand for redress for past injustices is transferring through the generations:

The eloquence and passion of the grandchildren of the McGurk family, the children of Pat Finucane, of Ann Travers, the sister of Mary Travers, murdered by a woman who is now a government advisor, all these suggest that the case being made for justice and a consideration of victims is coming now from a professional class of people can not be refused.

Through such people the case for the victims is not waning but getting stronger.

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