Brighton bomber Patrick Magee has said he does not want to be forgiven, "I don't think I deserve to be". Mr Magee last night joined Ms Jo Berry, daughter of one of his victims, at a debate in NUI Galway.
Mr Magee, who was convicted of planting the 1984 Brighton bomb, shared the platform with Ms Berry, daughter of Tory MP Sir Anthony Berry.
Addressing an audience of several hundred people at an event hosted by the university's Political Discussion Society, Mr Magee said he had joined the IRA at the age of 20.
"I stand over the decisions I took as a volunteer, and I believe that people in Northern Ireland had no other option 20 years ago than to take up arms," he said.
"If we in the North had to resort to arms when we had no other option, what does that say about people in power who resort to arms when they have other options?" he asked.
Ms Berry told how she was on her way to Africa for a two-year adventure in 1984 when she received a phone call from her sister about her father's death.
She said that about four or five years ago she began visiting the Glencree Centre for Reconciliation in Co Wicklow. Through contacts there she conveyed her wish to meet Mr Magee. He had been released in 1999 under the Belfast Agreement after serving 13 years for the crime which killed five people, including Ms Berry's father, and injured many others.
Ms Berry eventually met Mr Magee in Dublin on November 24th, 2000. It was the first of a series of meetings they have had since then. "I can't say it's easy," Ms Berry said last night. "I've learned a lot about myself."
She preferred to use the word understanding rather than forgiveness, in trying to explain the context of the dialogue. "I'm not sure that I have forgiven him," she said. "I still get angry, but I have come to see the humanity in the man who killed my father."
Mr Magee said that meeting Ms Berry had been one of the most profound experiences in his life and it would have been easier if she had been angry with him.
As a volunteer, it was easy to take certain decisions when dealing with people in uniform or their political masters. "You didn't see the human beings then," he said, "you didn't see beyond the uniform; but when you have that reduced view of other human beings, that takes something from you."
He was no longer a member of the IRA, nor was he involved with Sinn Féin, but he said he was still a republican.