David Kirwan

On Sunday night the BBC plumbed new depths with its canonisation of Gerry Adams in terms of its invitation to him to present the latest episode of ‘The Bible: A History’ on Channel 4 and for which he was reputedly paid £10,000.

Granting a religious platform to the self confessed leader of Sinn Fein throughout the troubles that tore Northern Ireland apart and resulted in the deaths of so many on both sides of the sectarian divide will outrage and shock most decent law abiding people in the Province as well as on the Mainland and none more so than the relatives of the twenty nine innocent victims of the Omagh Bomb outrage of 1998.

Many will be reminded of the chilling photograph taken only minutes before the blast of a smiling father posing with his child on his shoulders next to the red car full of explosives which the terrorists had left parked in the High Street. Hours later his camera was found in the bomb blast wreckage of what was left of that street. Then when we listen to Gerry Adams jokingly reminding the Archaeologist guiding him down into a narrow tomb below ground on a hill above Jerusalem and likened to that in which Jesus was probably buried, that he (Adams) was also a member of an ‘underground organisation’ (viz Sinn Fein) we might be forgiven for considering such an analogy a sickening if not blasphemous hypocrisy.

No one would advocate for one moment that any obstacle should be placed in the path of reconciliation in terms of the bitter feud that has divided the communities in Northern Ireland but there must be some limitation placed on the zeal that the BBC appears to display in its capacity to outrage common decency. Christ’s message was peace. That message should be transmitted only by hands free from the stain of the blood of innocent victims.