I demand that republicans tell me why Declan Arthurs was sent to his death at Loughgall?
The Galbally 21-year-old was one of eight members of the notorious East Tyrone Provo Brigade wiped out by the SAS after bombing the Loughgall police barracks on 8 May, 1987.
Why Declan Arthurs and why is the Loughgall ambush so much on my mind given that it happened more than two decades ago.
That date is deeply personal to me. It was the day I plucked up the courage to ask a young woman out for a first date. Next year, we celebrate our 23rd wedding anniversary.
She was aged 21 that day – the same age as Declan Arthurs. The IRA man was only a few days older than my wife.
While republicans rant about the so-called Loughgall Martyrs each 8 May, I always wonder what Declan Arthurs might have become had he not been gulled into joining the East Tyrone 'RA.
Forget rebel rhetoric that the SAS should have arrested the eight-man gang in Loughgall. Since when do British special forces take prisoners?
There has been talk Declan Arthurs joined the Provos after attending the funeral of one of the 10 republican hunger strikers six years earlier. So was it an inflammatory speech that persuaded that brainwashed that young Catholic into becoming a militant republican?
How many other young nationalists are in their graves across Ireland because they listened to the nutball ravings of so-called republican hardmen, filling their heads full of nonsense about fighting for Holy Mother Ireland or ridding the island of the evil British imperialists?
Had Declan Arthurs been so duped by these hardmen that he was considering joining an even more extreme republican terror gang led by Prod hater Jim Lynagh, who was also killed at Loughgall on 8 May.
I shed no tears at Lynagh's demise. Years earlier, he had tried to murder a close relative, but that person left the church with his clerical colleague 10 minutes ahead of schedule.
Nicknamed The Executioner, Lynagh was a seasoned republican killer who delighted in butchering Protestants.
How Lynagh would have gloated if he had shot dead two senior Orange clerics and Presbyterian ministers on the steps of a church.
Was it Lynagh's evil influence which conned young Declan Arthurs to go the path of violence rather than follow a political route?
Perhaps instead of visiting a lonely republican grave each 8 May, Declan Arthurs' family could have been travelling to Stormont to chat with Declan Arthurs, the 46-year-old nationalist MLA for Newry and Armagh, and a Minister in the Stormont power-sharing Executive.
I wonder if Declan Arthurs, in the few seconds before the SAS dispatched him into eternity, had the chance to consider his life in the IRA and wonder what might have been if he had become a decent nationalist politician instead of a hardened republican gunman and bomber?
Setting aside the idiotic republican beliefs which led to his death, I have often wondered what type of young man Declan Arthurs was.
Unionists may gloat privately or publicly at the violent death of Declan Arthurs, quoting the Bible that those who live by the sword will eventually die by the sword.
But was Declan Arthurs sacrificed to add impetus to the fledgling peace process? Is Stormont stable today because East Tyrone extremists like Arthurs were removed?
If Arthurs had been alive today, would he have been chief of staff of the dissident republican Oglaigh na hEireann? He could so easily have become my ONH source who just over a year ago boasted about bombing Stormont out of existence.
It's not just the Lynaghs which the republican community needs to purge itself off. The entire nationalist movement must ensure it does not create a culture of mad dog ranters who will egg on young men like Declan Arthurs to throw away their lives in an unwinnable cause.
Maybe in eternity, I will have the chance to bump into Declan Arthurs. I fully intend to tell him that he wasted his life getting involved with the IRA.
