Given how the wall has been used over many years now to highlight a range of alternative, radical, political, social and charitable causes, it is important to set the record straight on this one.
A number of weeks ago I was contacted at the Gasyard Centre by the Long Tower Parish Priest who enquired as to the use of the wall to celebrate the Columban Centenary within the Long Tower Parish. Given the location of the wall within the parish and its close proximity to St Columb's Wells, I personally felt it would be a right and reasonable thing to assent to.
However, it is my view that the decision to add text to the hoarding welcoming the Papal Legate was incongruous with, and highly insensitive to, the traditional radicalism associated with the wall. In short, it was wrong and a liberty that should not have been taken. Such insensitivity was, of course, only added to in the week of the release of an Irish Government report into decades of institutional sexual abuse and cover-up in schools and so-called care homes run by a number of Catholic church orders.
I therefore understand and share the anger and indignation felt by many people about this matter.
Is mise, le meas
Tony Doherty
(by email)