O’Neill suggested that the Irish Republican Army, which killed around half of the 3,600 people killed during the 30-year conflict, had no choice but to shoot and bomb until the 1998 Good Friday agreement. “I don’t think any Irishman ever woke up one morning and thought the conflict was a good idea, but the war came to Ireland,” he told the BBC in an interview broadcast this week. “I think then there was no alternative but now, fortunately, we have an alternative to conflict and that is the Good Friday Agreement.” Unionist politicians and victims’ rights groups accused O’Neill of ignoring historical reality and justifying the mass killings. “There has never been an excuse for violence,” said Geoffrey Donaldson, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party. “Even in Northern Ireland’s darkest days, the vast majority of our people respected democracy, the rule of law and – where they felt passionately about a particular cause – took part in peaceful protest. Sinn Féin can pretend there was no alternative, but they are condemned by the facts.” Kenny Donaldson, spokesman for victims’ group South East Fermanagh Foundation, said perceived or real grievances never justified the killing of one neighbor by another. Colin Wharton, who lost his brother Kenneth in a massacre of 10 Protestant workers in 1976, said the IRA had ignored peaceful alternatives in its campaign for a united Ireland. “For 30 years the IRA has been wedded to the bomb and the bullet and Sinn Féin is still trying to justify it. I don’t think they will ever change,’ he told the Belfast Telegraph. The row is a setback to Sinn Féin’s efforts to distance itself from the Troubles and broaden its electoral base without disavowing the IRA. O’Neill’s reference to the IRA having “no alternative” was a fleeting comment in an otherwise conciliatory interview. “My narrative is very different from someone who may have lost a loved one at the hands of the Republicans,” he told the BBC. “But we have to be mature enough to say it’s OK, we have to agree to differ on this, but let’s make sure that the circumstances never arise for us to find ourselves in this scenario again.” Subscribe to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7am. BST Sinn Féin emerged as the largest party in May’s general election, placing O’Neill as first minister if power-sharing is restored at Stormont. The wide-ranging interview about her life and influences touched on O’Neill’s experience as a single mother. There was praise and sympathy for her revelation that people at her Catholic school in County Tyrone had “prayed over her” when she became pregnant at 16.
