Pat Cullen declines to condemn IRA attacks on civilians in Fermanagh and Omagh - agreeing with O'Neill's 'no alternative' logic

Ms Cullen has also stuck to First Minister Michelle O’Neill’s line that there was no alternative to IRA violence - by claiming that the Good Friday Agreement was the alternative.

Last month the News Letter asked Ms Cullen if she defended IRA violence and she declined to say.

Aileen Quinton, whose retired mother, an ex nurse, was murdered in the Enniskillen bomb – wrote to us after appearing on the Nolan Show to say that Fermanagh and South Tyrone, where Ms Cullen is standing, is the constituency which includes the site of the 1987 IRA Poppy Day massacre in which a student nurse, a retired nurse and her retired ambulance driver husband and her mother, a retired nursing sister, were all murdered.

Ms Quinton then went on to explain why she consciously refers to the term Sinn Fein IRA.

During a BBC Radio Ulster election debate on Wednesday morning, Ms Cullen was asked by Ulster Unionist candidate Diana Armstrong if she would condemn the murder of nurses by the IRA in the constituency.

Mrs Armstrong said: “I’m thinking of the nurses who perished in the Enniskillen bomb and the Omagh bomb. And I think we have yet to hear a condemnation of those two extreme attacks within this district.

“So no I’m not convinced. I have asked for clarification from Pat Cullen and her stance as to Sinn Fein and their affiliation with the IRA – and I’d like to hear condemnation of those atrocities”.

The Sinn Fein candidate – previously the Assistant Director of Nursing, Safety Quality and Patient Experience in the Public Health Agency – said: “Look, I've said very clearly those were very dark days as a community nurse. I've held the hands of many people that have lived through those periods.

“I’ve felt, I've heard and I've seen their trauma have seen I've seen what it does to them. That's not go back there. Let's move forward and bring prosperity and hope to the people”.

Her leader, Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill, sparked outrage in 2022 when she said there was no alternative to IRA violence until the Good Friday Agreement.

Now First Minister of Northern Ireland, Ms O’Neill told the BBC: “I don’t think any Irish person ever woke up one morning and thought that conflict was a good idea, but the war came to Ireland”.

“I think at the time there was no alternative, but now, thankfully, we have an alternative to conflict and that’s the Good Friday agreement.”

Pat Cullen stuck to Ms O’Neill’s line, telling BBC’s Good Morning Ulster programme: “Look, I have been been clear, the alternative has been the Good Friday Agreement and the peace process. And look, I have worked as a nurse.

“I've said this – as a community psychiatric nurse during the darkest, darkest days of our conflict in this, in this, in this North. And I never want to see us returning there”.

Reacting to the interview on the BBC’s Nolan Show, Aileen Quinton said Ms Cullen's response added to her grief. She said: “People kind of dismiss this as the past, but this is in the present that she is failing to condemn the IRA”.

Ms Quinton – whose mother was murdered when the IRA bombed Enniskillen – added: “We should be going into the future with an understanding and acceptance amongst people standing to be public representatives that terrorism was not okay”.

Among those to react to the interview was the DUP special advisor Richard Bullick, who posted on social media platform X: “Not just Sinn Féin’s candidate, but until last month Pat Cullen was the Chief Executive and General Secretary of the Royal College of Nursing across the UK… extraordinary”.

UUP chair Jill Macauley said the comments were “not progressive” and far from “positive change” Sinn Fein have been promising.

The News Letter has given Ms Cullen another opportunity to clarify her position. We asked “For absolute clarity – do you condemn the murder of civilians, police and other emergency services – including nurses – by the IRA, or do you not?”

So far, there has been no response.

The full list of candidates for the Fermanagh and South Tyrone constituency is: “Ulster Unionist Party, Diana Armstrong –

Social Democratic & Labour Party, Paul Blake – Cross-Community Labour Alternative, Gerry Cullen – Sinn Fein, Pat Cullen _ Aontú, Carl Duffy – Alliance Party, Eddie Roofe.