Editorial: Pat Cullen is shamed by her refusal to condemn the IRA Poppy Day bomb in which nurses were among civilians who were slaughtered

​Pat Cullen made one thing clear yesterday on the radio – that she is not going to answer whether or not IRA violence was justified.

In a sense we already had the answer to that question, in that she is a Sinn Fein candidate. The party justifies IRA terrorism, almost no matter what atrocity is cited.

Its representatives often resort of weasel words about regretting all deaths. This at times has fooled people, for example when a Sinn Fein law lecturer expressed sadness about the murder of the academic, lawyer and unionist politician Edgar Graham, as if he had been hit by a comet. While some people interpreted this remark as a breakthrough, we kept asking this one-time SF candidate if he actually opposed the killing, which is the key point. He reacted so defensively to these questions that, at one point, he threatened legal action. We never got an answer.

Ms Cullen’s view on the IRA is important for many reasons, one of which – obviously – is the vicious past IRA violence during the Troubles in the constituency she hopes to represent. Another, specifically, is the murder of three nurses in the Enniskillen Poppy Day bombing.

But even setting aside the record of bloodshed in that area, and across NI, Ms Cullen was head of the Royal College of Nursing. She was not shy about criticising politicians, particularly British Tory ones, in the most withering and outspoken terms. This is no political novice.

It was the News Letter that asked last month if she supported IRA violence, three weeks ago. Now, finally, it is a BBC story.

To be clear, Ms Cullen’s refusal even to say that she opposed the Enniskillen massacre at a remembrance service at which nurses were slaughtered is shameful. It might or might not harm her with her target voters, but she would stand damned by the failure to condemn whoever she was. As a former nursing chief all the more so.