On September 11th, the British government ordered a public inquiry into the murder of Pat Finucane, a Belfast solicitor (attorney) who was murdered in his north Belfast home in 1989 by the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) with the collusion of the British government. Finucane was shot multiple times in front of his young children and wife Geraldine was also wounded in the shooting.
Finucane had first emerged into the public eye in 1981, when he acted as a solicitor for Bobby Sands then on hunger strike who was running for parliament. Throughout the last 35 years, there have been repeated calls for a full inquiry into the murder of Finucane and the broader issue of British government collusion with loyalist paramilitary groups. (For those interested in following the case in detail, the Irish Times has produced a great chronology of events).
The murder of Pat Finucane is one of the too many deaths that occurred during the period often euphemistically referred to as “The Troubles” that lasted from roughly 1968 to 1998. What makes this murder especially terrible is that while directed at one person it was really an attack on the law. Furthermore, there is substantial evidence that the killers worked in conjunction with the security forces. Way back in 2012, the then British Prime Minister David Cameron acknowledged to Geraldine Finucane that there was state collusion involved in the matter and he apologized to her.
For thirty-five years, the Finucane family has argued that Pat Finucane’s murder merited a full public inquiry. For over twenty years, the British government has promised an inquiry. The first promise was made in 2001 in an agreement with the Irish government and the second was in 2004 when a UDA gunman was convicted of the murder. The human rights group Amnesty International called Britain’s refusal to hold an inquiry into Finucane’s murder as “not only cruel, but positively sinister.”
The decision to establish the inquiry was announced in the House of Commons by Hilary Benn, the British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Benn told the House of Commons that “Nothing any of us can do will bring them back. But what we can do is seek transparency for them. We must work for a better future.”
There have been many moments over the decades which seemed to be hopeful but have only been false promises. However, this time the moral arc of the university is I think finally bending towards justice. The American civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. often quoted the abolitionist maxim that the “moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” I believe this is true. I also think that as individuals we can help bend the arc of justice.
Over several decades, the Finucane family has worked tirelessly for a full account of Pat Finucane’s murder. Their persistence, dedication and just an absolute refusal to stop fighting for the truth has truly bent the moral arc of the universe in the direction of justice not only for themselves or the people of Ireland but for all of us.
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