Sir, - In The Irish Times of January 25th Kevin Myers, made the point that the sufferings of those who lost relatives in the months after Bloody Sunday were "no less than the sufferings of the people in Derry". No one can disagree with that. Certainly the families of the 14 who were killed that day would not.
To campaign for a new inquiry into the events of January 30th 1972 is in no way to minimise or take lightly the sufferings of others. As I understand it, the relatives have asked, and continue to ask, not for an apology so much as for a fresh inquiry into the events of that day which takes all the facts into consideration and, in doing so, establishes beyond reasonable doubt the innocence of their dead. In doing so they have repeatedly, over the past 25 years, distanced themselves from any attempt to hijack their cause or harness it to the propaganda output of others.
In view of that fact, and in consideration of how much they have suffered and will continue to suffer unjustice is done how can Mr Myers be so offensive as to ask "what business the families of Bloody Sunday have in permitting their tragedy and their loss to be enlisted by a cause which took the lives of 56 people" subsequently?
The abiding legacy of what did happen on Bloody Sunday and what did not happen at the Widgery Tribunal is that it encouraged many people, who would never otherwise have thought of" doing so, to take what remained of the law when Lord Widgery had finished with it into their own hands. The responsibility for that has unfortunately to be laid at the door of those who ordered the shootings, and on those who afterwards brought their own legal system into disrepute. It cannot be laid at the door of the bereaved, families. - Yours, etc.,
Rathfarnham Road,
Dublin 14.