On 12th June a permanent memorial to those innocent people who lost their lives in the 1973 Coleraine bomb will be unveiled whilst the day before a Sinn Fein MP will address a so called “South Armagh Volunteers Commemoration”.
The DUP MP said, “This year is the 50th anniversary of two Provisional IRA bombs which took the lives of 6 people and injured 33 in Coleraine. It was an indiscriminate attack on entirely innocent people going about their business in a busy town.
The memorial service in Coleraine will be a sombre and dignified event with a one-minute silence at 3pm, marking the time of the first explosion. It will commemorate the murder of six innocent people and many others whose lives were changed forever that day.
Sinn Fein's approach to the event in Coleraine is important not least because a current Sinn Fein Councillor was sentenced to 18 years in prison for his role in the murders. Instead however the focus of republicans is on an event to commemorate terrorists taking place the day before in South Armagh. Two events 24 hours apart will demonstrate more clearly than ever before where Sinn Fein’s priorities lie.
Sinn Fein MP John Finucane is scheduled to address an event which will eulogise individuals who destroyed countless lives. The pain that will be on display in Coleraine will be in stark contrast to events in South Armagh which will be accompanied by music and children’s entertainers. Sinn Fein talks about "remembering their dead with dignity and respect” yet promote an event which appears little more than a funfair.
As is too often the case, will media and commentators look the other way in a ‘nothing to see here, move along’ approach? But people across Northern Ireland deserve to see this incredibly vivid contrast between Sinn Fein’s rhetoric and their actions.”
