Shankill Road

Twenty-five years ago, two members of the Provisional IRA entered a fish shop on the Shankill Road. The plan was to force customers out of the fish shop and detonate a bomb, killing the leaders of the Ulster Defence Association meeting above the fish shop. The UDA was a unionist paramilitary group.
As with so many IRA bombings, things didn’t go to plan. The UDA meeting had been rescheduled, so the targets weren’t there. And the bomb when off prematurely, killing one of the bombers, one UDA member, and eight civilians in the fish shop, including two children. More than 50 people were wounded.
The UDA responded with attacks on Catholics, including shooting up a pub in Greysteel near Derry on Halloween, killing eight, wounding 19.
I bring this up because there was a memorial to the Shankill Road bomb victims at a church--a cross community somber event. But there was also a memorial to the bomber at the cemetery where his remains are buried. His co-bomber was one of the speakers. Is it a wonder that healing is obstructed here when each side is still celebrating the “heroism” of terrorists? I saw a banner in East Belfast recently near a sectarian mural honouring the "brave soldiers" and accusing the PSNI of a witch hunt for trying to prosecute Troubles-era crimes.
It is maddening and saddening.
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