(Legacy, the IRA and Victims – Part I is here.)

There is another aspect of so-called ‘legacy’ in Northern Ireland that all the ‘agreed legacy institutions’ will never address and that is the widespread help given to IRA murderers and bombers by the ordinary members of the nationalist/Catholic community – and for which there hasn’t been any admission or act of repentance, real or symbolic.

The IRA relied upon the support of a large number of sympathisers in the Catholic/Nationalist community:

1. to hide weapons and explosives
2. to provide ‘safe houses’ where on-the-run volunteers might eat meals, sleep overnight and even plan future attacks
3. to provide transport of personnel and sometimes of explosives and weapons
4. to provide finance to keep the local IRA activity going
5. to allow the use of clean, false I.D.s to be used by IRA volunteers
6. to provide information on alleged informers who were later abducted, tortured…