Cullen's Selective and Distorted Historical Memory
24 July 2012
Responding to a speech by Sinn Fein/IRA Culture Minister Carol Cullen at the opening of the John Hewitt Summer School TUV leader Jim Allister said:
“Minister Cullen’s comments reveal a great deal about how we can expect her Department to approach the important anniversaries coming up over the next few years. While she talks grandly about the need for reconciliation and respect it is evident that she has none of that for the Unionist tradition.
“While she highlights the Easter Rising, the Declaration of Independence and what she describes as “the damage of partition” there is no mention of the Ulster Covenant, Carson’s Declaration of a Provisional Government, the battles of the Somme and Messines, where thousands of Irishmen fought and died for freedom while serving under the flag of the United Kingdom.
“Cullen’s attempts to distort the history of the early 20th century and use it to serve her own bigoted political ends are bad enough but her attempts to portray the British state as the major cause of the Troubles is simply outrageous.
“It ill-becomes someone with the terrorist background of Cullen to call for the disclosure of truth just days after the anniversary of Bloody Friday. Did she call on any of her “comrades” in the IRA to tell the truth about that event? What about the murder of Mary Travers of which her former Special Adviser was convicted? Mary McArdle was written to by the Historical Inquiries Team who were investigating the murder but she refused to help them in any way.
“The hypocrisy of Cullen’s comments is simply nauseating.”
