COMMENT: Suspending Barry McElduff for three months shows the extent of Sinn Féin’s interest in reconciliation

Anyone who has suffered a bereavement knows the feelings that can accompany the anniversary of a death. No matter how much time has passed, many can dread the day as it approaches.

Sometimes it can pass uneventfully, but in other cases, it brings back painful memories of those who have been lost. Often it is a day when feelings are raw, especially if the bereaved are recalling a loss that was brutal, savage and inhumane. 

Barry McElduff, is clearly one of the island’s great eejits, but no matter what was or was not taking place across the vast wasteland inside his head when he put a loaf of Kingsmill bread on top of it on the anniversary of the Kingsmill massacre, he would surely understand that much about bereavement.

McElduff has said he was attempting to make a comic video and was unaware of any link with the Kingsmill massacre, but few outside some members of his tribe that would back him no matter what, found that explanation plausible.

“Mr McElduff’s assertions that he didn’t know what he was doing are simply not credible,” Brendan Howlin said, but some did find it credible, although some of them wouldn’t have been overly concerned with offending the victims of the Kingsmill massacre in the first place. https://twitter.com/BarryMcElduff/status/949599783907360768

On Monday afternoon, Sinn Féin decided that McElduff would be suspended for three months, a suspension which appeared to take inspiration from those long GAA suspensions which seem to cover the close season, but don’t rule the suspended player out of any matches.

Of course, as far as Sinn Féin in Northern Ireland are concerned at the moment, every day is the close season. With the Stormont Assembly suspended and Sinn Féin’s ongoing refusal to take their seats in Westminster, they are less like a GAA player and more like, say, Winston Bogarde, a player who is on the pay roll without there being any clear evidence of what they do.

McElduff is said to be an insignificant figure within Sinn Féin, but he was not so insignificant that the party felt they could demand his resignation as an MP in order to demonstrate some real commitment to change and how their party is perceived beyond their base.

There is a lot of talk about a united Ireland at the moment, or an agreed Ireland as they like to say, but for anything to be agreed in a way that makes the agreement not a hostile one, there would need to be some understanding of the feelings of those most resistant to change.

In this instance, it wasn't those who were intransigently opposed who took offence, but those who had suffered most.

In 2011, the Historical Inquiries Team found that the slaughter at Kingsmill was committed by the Provisional IRA. At the time, the South Armagh Republican Action Force claimed responsibility. The men who were killed were murdered because of their religion. It was one of the most grotesque acts of violence committed during the years of killing.

In a country where words, symbols and gestures matter, Kingsmill is one which echoes through the generations.

There were those who were prepared to see McElduff's video as just one of those unfortunate coincidences for which he has nothing to apologise for, a 1000/1 shot, which made them sound like Jim Carrey in Dumb And Dumber clinging to any possibility and saying, "so you're telling me there's a chance?".

"I steer clear of bigots, no matter where they come from," Alan Black, a survivor of the massacre who was shot 18 times in the attack told the BBC when he explained why he wouldn't be taking McElduff up on his offer of a meeting. He spoke of the hurt caused to the families of those who were murdered at McElduff's actions, and it would have surely shown some genuine acknowledgement that Sinn Féin don't want to perpetuate that hurt if they had taken stronger action. Sinn Féin could have paid more attention to Black's comments. Michelle O'Neill said the tweet wasn't "of the standard we expect", making it sound like there was a way of offending bereaved families and a way of not doing it. She went on to offer the boilerplate apology in these circumstances. "To the Kingsmill families I recognise the hurt this has caused and I wholeheartedly apologise for any distress."

Earlier on Monday, Sinn Féin had described McElduff’s actions as ‘inexcusable’ and ‘indefensible’, but it turned out they could only not defend and not excuse them for three months, a period when he will continue to receive his salary. So not that indefensible or inexcusable.

“Reconciliation will only happen when all sides embrace the need for sensitivity and remorse,” Declan Kearney, the party’s national chairperson, had said earlier on Monday, while describing McElduff's actions as ‘irresponsible’ and an ‘error of judgment’.

Kearney's talk about reconciliation sounded good. Sensitivity and remorse are what needs to happen. Yet in suspending McElduff for three months, Sinn Féin showed that they can talk about reconciliation, but too often when it comes to actions, their words are as empty as the vast space inside Barry McElduff's head.