February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
The conference on the life and death of Pat Finucane, his work and his legacy is, sad to say, also an understandable and inevitable response to the failure of successive British governments to hold a full, public, objective inquiry into a cold-blooded killing carried out in the most callous fashion by individuals apparently aided and encouraged by agents of the state.
For the years that made up the Troubles, a primary objective of the British government, regardless of which party was in power, was to stay on message with regard to the reason for the bloodshed in Northern and beyond, and to keep that message simple.
It was the good guys versus the bad guys, the forces of law and order against evil terrorists.
Northern Ireland was, purely and simple, a security situation.
The Pat Finucane murder rather complicates this simple and simplistic equation and of course it does not stand entirely alone.
However, for several reasons, it does stand out.
It’s easy to see why Pat Finucane’s death might seem like a Pandora’s Box to some. And perhaps it’s not a stretch to imagine why a state’s power centers might want to keep the lid of such a box firmly shut.
But the unrelenting desire that the truth must prevail is impossible to contain in any society, democratic or otherwise.
And that desire, coupled with the determination and dedication of many people on both sides of the Atlantic, has led to the gates of Trinity College, an institution dedicated to knowledge and truth.
As a result, the box will be a little more open after this week’s work.