NI Conservatives’ co-chair, Trevor Ringland, has described the plan to hold a parade commemorating IRA volunteers in Castlederg as “astonishingly insensitive” and said Declan McAleer MLA’s contention that it is not a contentious parade is “patently ridiculous”. “Castlederg was affected particularly badly by the IRA’s campaign of murder and this parade seems to ignore completely its deeply sectarian nature.”, Trevor remarked. “For the future of everyone in Northern Ireland, we must challenge any group which wants to promote, glorify or justify the unlawful, illegal acts which made a mess of our past. That applies as much to those who would wish to fly UVF flags, as parks named after IRA men or events lionising terrorist organisations.” “It’s incredibly important that we don’t pass on the wrong messages about our past to young people. Violence was never going to, and will never, solve the problems on the island of Ireland and that is the clear lesson we should be telling our children. For that reason it’s vital that we keep challenging the movements who created that violence and who want to airbrush history to cast their actions in a kinder light. That is simply not acceptable and it is not the way to heal divisions and build a better and genuinely shared future for Northern Ireland.”