Chai Brady
Bishop of Derry Donal McKeown At a “tense time” in the North, Bishop Donal McKeown has called for everyone in “leadership positions to ask for calm rather than confrontation” after a man was arrested at a memorial for the victims of the Ormeau Road massacre in Belfast – a loyalist attack the arrested man was seriously injured in.
Speaking to The Irish Catholic, Bishop McKeown said: “The PSNI are run by the policing board who have a large number of political representatives on it. It’s important that political representatives ensure that the PSNI is correctly managed.
“I think there’s work to be done and I think the Police Service of Northern Ireland is aware of the work that has to be done and I hope that all of us in leadership positions can encourage calm so that solutions can be found,” Dr McKeown said.
His comments come after Mark Sykes, who was wounded during the massacre, was arrested last week during an outdoor commemoration.
Five people, including a 15-year-old boy, were murdered and several others injured in February 1992 when loyalist paramilitaries opened fire at the Sean Graham bookmakers.
Belfast-based priest Fr Eugene O’Neil, administrator of St Patrick’s parish in the city described what happened as “a very unfortunate, insensitive call by people who perhaps didn’t know the context of what they were doing”.
“To me Northern Ireland is a place where you have to step carefully because nearly every street corner or every block there has been a terrible murder,” Fr O’Neill said.
“One has to be awfully careful of saying anything or intervening and just be very sensitive to people’s pain and the echoes of memory on every street corner on both sides of the great divide between us and that is just how you operate.
“I would be interested to see whatever internal inquiry shows forth about this but I suspect it was an unfortunate piece of policing – the wrong call, which then escalated because people’s great sensitivities where not perhaps understood, that’s what I’m thinking probably is the reality of it.”
The Police Ombudsman is investigating the incident and two officers have been disciplined with one being suspended and the other reassigned to other duties.