John Finucane says Good Friday Agreement of 1998 offered first 'peaceful and democratic path to Irish unity'

By Adam Kula
Published 9th Apr 2023, 18:21 BST
Updated 9th Apr 2023, 19:05 BST
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​Sinn Fein MP John Finucane has said the Good Friday Agreement was “the first time” a peaceful pathway had existed to Irish unity.

The North Belfast representative was speaking as republicans island-wide attended parades and orations to mark the anniversary of the Easter Rising (which actually fell on April 24, 1916).

Groups on parade ranged from dissident factions to government figures at state commemorations in the Irish republic.

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Mr Finucane spoke at the republican plot in Milltown Cemetery, west Belfast, on Sunday saying: “I want to salute the republican activists of Belfast who continue to assert the demand for Irish freedom, and I also want to acknowledge the pain and trauma that many families from all backgrounds carry as a result of tragic loss during the conflict by all armed groups."

In a statement released by his party shortly afterwards, he said: “A key element of the Good Friday Agreement was that, for the first time, it provided a peaceful, democratic path to Irish Unity. The only thing standing between us and a united Ireland is our ability to convince others that it will be a better Ireland for everyone.”

Meanwhile Stephen Gault, a survivor of the IRA’s Enniskillen bomb of November 1987, which killed 12 people (including his father), insisted that peaceful and democratic means had always been open to pro-united Irelanders, telling the News Letter that the SDLP, for example, “set their sights on a united Ireland, but the SDLP didn’t go down the road of terrorism”.

Now aged 53 (four years older than his father when he died), Mr Gault contrasted Sinn Fein’s present-day condemnation of things like the attempted murder of detective John Caldwell with the pre-1998 republican view that being a police officer made someone a “legitimate target”, and the party’s ongoing commemoration of bygone IRA men.

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“The people that lost their lives through all those years regardless of who pulled the trigger or detonated the bomb… it should never have happened,” he said.

Pacemaker Press 09/04/23: Thousands of people line the street during the National Graves Association parade on Easter Sunday on the Falls Road in West Belfast. John Finucane and Gerry Adams were among those in attendance. Pic PacemakerPacemaker Press 09/04/23: Thousands of people line the street during the National Graves Association parade on Easter Sunday on the Falls Road in West Belfast. John Finucane and Gerry Adams were among those in attendance. Pic Pacemaker
Pacemaker Press 09/04/23: Thousands of people line the street during the National Graves Association parade on Easter Sunday on the Falls Road in West Belfast. John Finucane and Gerry Adams were among those in attendance. Pic Pacemaker

"We could’ve been in this situation without the loss of life. There was no need to have all the empty chairs in people’s houses. There’s no need for it. They could have done it in a democratic and peaceful way.”

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• Just the facts: As pro-IRA chanting spreads across Ireland here are the hard numbers behind the IRA's insurrection