Debate contribution: Audit and Re-imaging of Memorials

Debate contribution by Mr Matthew O'Toole on 11 November 2025.

MLA

Mr Matthew O'Toole

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

11 November 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Audit and Re-imaging of Memorials

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5349745

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I will not speak for very long, but I am pleased to speak on today's motion, I thank Ms Bradshaw of the Alliance Party for moving it. We broadly support the motion. I have certain concerns about both amendments, particularly the DUP one, which removes and softens the requirement to audit memorials on public land and talks about considering an audit. I do not know why that needs to be softened, but there may be broad consensus on that. If our party had drafted the motion or the amendments, we would not have used that precise language, but that is the nature of these things. Lots of what I will say has been said very eloquently already by my colleague Sinéad McLaughlin. I also agree with things that have been said by many Members who have spoken. Nearly everybody has talked about the need, and indeed, the solemn onus on all of us to respect communities' and families' right to remember their dead. Remembering our own loved ones is profoundly personal. It is very distinctively Irish and of this island, and when I say "Irish and of this island", I mean that it stretches through all our communities, including British unionist communities. We take it very seriously on this island in all our traditions. It is important to say a couple of things, though. In this debate, we often conflate the public and the private. When it comes to commemorating and remembering our dead — people that we have personally lost or we have lost in a close communal sense — it is not the same thing, in my view, as broader society being willing to tolerate any form of commemoration of organisations that those individuals were part of or, indeed, acts that were committed by those organisations. I recognise that, by definition, the people who suffered the most in the conflict in Northern Ireland were in working-class communities. Almost inevitably, those communities were also the people from whom paramilitary organisations drew their membership, whether it was the Provisional IRA, the INLA or loyalist groups. That is true, but it is also true that those communities suffered most at the hands of those organisations. When we talk about these things and use words like "communities", we should not assume that all the people in those working-class communities were supporters of the IRA, the UVF or the UDA, because, in many cases, those were people who suffered at the hands of those organisations. When we make these broad statements about remembering our dead, we should be careful that we do not simply conflate communities with individuals. All individuals, whatever organisations they were involved in, whatever path they took in life, whatever reason they died or however they died, their family and those immediately around them and who cared about them deserve to remember them in a solemn and respectful way.

We then come on to the question of public memorials. We have a contested history: that was said by Deirdre Hargey, and she is correct. We do have a contested history. There is however an onus on all of us, as public representatives, to create structures that enable us to move on from that history. There is a famous Brian Friel play about memory, identity, language and history. It is called 'Translations', and many Members will be familiar with it. In it, there is a famous line where a character says:

"To remember everything is a form of madness."

It is said in a slightly trivial way: I do not think that people should be prevented from remembering or reminiscing about things that they or their community experienced. Indeed, real, bitter pain and loss needs to be remembered. However, it is also the case that we cannot have a situation where we legitimise past deeds at the risk of the future. For example, in talking about the future, it is important for unionist politicians that those who speak on Armistice Day are able to remember people whom they lost in that context. However, I do not think that it is legitimate to put up the insignia of the Parachute Regiment, which was done by some DUP politicians, when the Bloody Sunday families, who were innocent victims, were hearing the judgements at the High Court in Belfast. As someone who wants to build a new Ireland, I am not willing to trade off a conversation about a new Ireland at the price of IRA memorials, because that is the past. Though that past exists, and it needs to be understood and talked about sensitively, the conversation that I am most interested in is about the future and moving on from that difficult past. The past should be understood, and people who suffered need to be able to remember that suffering —

— but that cannot be at the cost of our future.

810 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:38 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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