A Historic Meeting Between Individuals From a Formerly Divided Community Ignored

Chris Grizzell

From An Phoblacht: http://aprnonline.com/?p=86640

From the beginning, Sinn Féin's 2011 ard fheis (annual conference) was out of the ordinary. It was held in Belfast, marking the first Sinn Féin ard fheis to be held in Northern Ireland. It marked the first time that the Prince's Trust charity had a table at any Sinn Féin ard fheis. And it was the first time that a Protestant minister gave a speech at a Sinn Féin ard fheis.
Sinn Féin has been, since its founding in the early 20th century, a predominantly Irish nationalist party, in favor of cutting most ties with Britain, better encouraging Irish culture, and bringing about a united, 32 county Ireland. As is with most Irish nationalists, the party is predominantly Catholic. For this reason, Reverend David Latimer, a Presbyterian minister, giving a speech at Sinn Féin's largest meeting of the year is something that should be making more than just local news in Northern Ireland and certainly be worthy of the front page in Great Britain, particularly when Latimer was calling possible presidential candidate Martin McGuinness one of the "true great leaders of all time". For a nationalist party to make such an accommodation to the community usually seen as opposite their interests, this is a big move and ought to be huge news, yet the papers in Britain seem to have ignored it. Whether this is out of the traditional British ignorance of Northern Ireland affairs or out of continued mistrust of Sinn Féin or out of simply not noticing the story is unknown, but it does make note, as Roy Greenslade, professor of journalism at City University and a blogger for the Guardian, says, "how good news is ignored in favour of bad news."
Granted, this appearance by Latimer has not been viewed without skepticism. Some have labeled his ard fheis speech a "performance" and a "gimmick", others consider the minister a "maverick". Regardless of the views of many, it can certainly be agreed that a movement for the formerly militant Sinn Féin (which was once the political wing of the Irish Republican Army) to form closer ties with those viewed to be against their views is a great bit of news that the British papers (and perhaps some international papers) are wrong to ignore. Greenslade furthers his point by saying, "If a bomb had gone off in Belfast on Friday you can bet that would have been covered."