THE BEST way forward in dealing with the legacy of the Troubles will be one that brings healing and lasting reconciliation. There will be a range of priorities, let alone viewpoints, in this pursuit and there is no doubt that they all form a complex and challenging mix. Even the basic terms ‘Ireland’ and ‘Northern Ireland’ themselves have emotive nuances, and ‘terrorist’ is another hot potato. ‘Ireland’ is the official name of the 26 counties, but it is also the geographical name of the island. Nationalist and Republican people often studiously avoid using the term ‘Northern Ireland’ and in the Republic there has developed a tendency to refer to Great Britain as the UK, even though Northern Ireland is constitutionally part of the latter. Acts of terrorism are generally understood to include unlawful acts of violence intended to influence governments or intimidate the public.¹ Despite the many challenges, dealing with the Troubles legacy has recently been in the news due to a joint initiative by the British and Irish governments. What follows here is an account of how this issue has developed in the political arena over recent months, along with some pastoral reflections. The Legacy of the Troubles In September 2025 the two governments jointly published The Legacy of the Troubles: A Joint Framework between the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Government of Ireland. The British government summarised the main thrust of the proposals in the following terms: Through the new legislation and other commitments the UK government would: • fundamentally reform the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR), strengthening its independence, governance and powers and putting in place a new conflict of interest policy. Following these reforms, the body would be renamed the Legacy Commission. • repeal the Legacy Act’s immunity scheme, ending the prospect of immunity being granted to terrorists. • allow the small number of inquests that were halted by the 2023 Legacy Act to resume, with other previously directed inquests subject to a robust independent assessment by the Solicitor General. There would be no announcement of further new inquests, with the new Legacy Commission becoming the primary route; and • put in place six new rights, safeguards and protections, including through legislation, for any Northern Ireland veteran asked to engage with a legacy process. (The UK government defines a veteran as “anyone who has served for at least 1 day in HM Armed Forces (Regular or Reserve), or Merchant Mariners who have seen duty on legally defined military operations”.²) As part of the agreement, the Irish government would: • ensure, through new legislation, the fullest possible co-operation of the relevant Irish authorities with the Legacy Commission, thus enabling many more families – including families of service personnel killed by acts of terrorism – finally to obtain answers about those incidents; • establish a new legacy unit in An Garda Síochána, and investigate all unresolved Troubles-related incidents in the Republic of Ireland; and • provide funding to support legacy mechanisms.³ Pastoral considerations and the meaning of forgiveness On the release of The Legacy of the Troubles, the Irish Church Leaders’ Group, following an initial discussion of the proposals, issued a statement recognising the complexity of the subject but nonetheless welcoming the development. The church leaders urged that the material be closely considered and committed to do so themselves, as well as in their denominations, adding: “Above all, we owe it to the victims and survivors to ensure that their needs are met with compassion and thoroughness.”⁴ Indeed, amid all the political manoeuvring and historical theorising, the interests of victims and survivors can easily be obscured. As long ago as 2002, the challenge of dealing with the legacy issue was highlighted, with a distinctly pastoral emphasis, by Lord Eames in a lecture at the Galway Social Study Summer School. On that occasion, he said that “to put the past behind us requires that somehow a door is closed”, and that to do this, a way had to be found in which “memories of the past, hurts of the past, guilt of the past” would be addressed honestly.⁵ The depth of the trauma experienced by many during the Troubles is self-evident and the churches had a particular role in bringing comfort to the bereaved and wounded, as well as a Christian perspective both to those victims as well as to society at large. A major issue here is that of forgiveness, but it seems to mean different things to different people. Certainly, priestly absolution may only be given following confession of sin. For some people, however, forgiveness is essentially about shedding a certain burden in relation to one’s feelings towards a wrongdoer, a letting go of such anger. Perhaps, however, forgiveness is better not seen as a stand-alone virtue but, rather, as but one part of a three-part process that leads to reconciliation, which is God’s desire for all the estranged: confession, reparation, forgiveness.⁶ Professor Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela of Stellenbosch University in South Africa, who was awarded the 2024 Templeton Prize for her work concerning trauma and forgiveness in the post-apartheid experience in her country, has spoken of the importance of remorse in the process of reconciliation. In an earlier interview she remarked how when family members “encounter the remorse of the perpetrator, they encounter the perpetrator as a human being”. She saw that connection as making forgiveness possible. For her, the importance of remorse has been generally underestimated, describing it as a “reclaiming” of conscience that has been silenced at the time of wrongdoing.⁷ What is key here from a Christian perspective is that, even without any admission of guilt by a wrongdoer, the victim should eschew any bitterness towards that individual, as did Enniskillen’s Gordon Wilson who said of those who murdered his daughter, Marie, in the town’s ‘Poppy Day’ bomb in 1987, that he bore them “no ill-will”. Alf McCreary has quoted Gordon Wilson’s words, referring to the bombers: “Their crime was so heinous that only God...
