Paddy's day special

I'm venturing into Irish politics today on account of it being St.Patrick's Day. I found this article on the McCartney case in Spiked on-line. I had a tremendous amount of sympathy with the McCartney family but I was starting to feel uneasy about the way they had lined up with an array of forces traditionally hostile to the republican movement. And when I heard that the McCartney sisters were to meet with George Bush I was absolutely dismayed. There was hysteria in the media when the IRA offered to shoot the killers of Robert McCartney. Do the McCartney sisters really see George Bush justice as being morally superior to that? This is a guy who used to unwind by watching a state execution in Texas and now likes to watch the Iraqi resistance "bring 'em on" so that this chicken-hawk can liberate such cities as Fallujah. I still feel very sorry for the McCartneys. On top of losing a loved one, they have allowed themselves to be used by a coalition of malevolent media and political forces.

The irony of the McCartneys' campaign for local justice is that they are now removed from their local community, and their campaign transformed from holding individuals to account to something beyond their control. There are reports that some residents in the Short Strand are becoming disgruntled by the changing nature of the campaign. Might the politicisation of the McCartneys' grievance end up exacerbating the unravelling of old bonds in east Belfast?