Sinn Féin deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald was among the participants in the annual reading of the names of all the victims of the Northern Ireland troubles in Dublin today.
The Dublin MEP said she was “very glad to be invited” to the Unitarian Church in St Stephen’s Green where the list of more than 3,500 people who have died as a result of the conflict were read out.
Ms McDonald said: “When you hear the names you realise the scale of the loss involved and above all the number of families that are still grieving.
“For me as a republican and at Easter in particular, you remember just how far we have travelled and just how far we have to go.”
She also said it is a time when republicans, whose aim is Irish unity, “think about what must be done in terms of reconciliation in Ireland”.
“Above all,” she said “there is no going back”.
Ms McDonald said listening to the names she realized that “death doesn’t discriminate in terms of peoples’ politics and that republicans have always railed against any hierarchy of victims.”
And she talked of the determination of helping an “Ireland that can heal”.
Ms McDonald said she very pleased to have been asked to participate in the readings because the ceremony serves “a very important purpose”.
“The rememberance is part of a healthy society and crucial to peace in Ireland - we cannot afford amnesia.”
She said: "Those of us in politics have to right the wrongs."
Others that took part in the ceremony include Monsignor Tom Stack former parish priest at Milltown Co Dublin, Canon Patrick Comerford of the Church of Ireland theological institute, RTÉ broadcaster Doireann ní Bhroinn, Andy Pollock of the third level institute in Armagh and Reverend Bill Darlison Minister at the Unitarian church.
The annual act of commemoration, now in its ninth year, is believed to be the only religious service of its kind in Ireland.
