"It is sad indeed to witness that whilst the rest of Northern Ireland is moving on from the past, Queens Students Union seems to be stuck in a grossly offensive time-warp. Not only was an employee told to remove a poppy in the Union building, but not one member of the Union Executive committee turned up on Remembrance Sunday to lay a wreath in memory of all those who died in the two world wars and in subsequent conflicts. The Students Union wreath had to be laid by members of the university staff instead.
The Students Union has for many years enjoyed a negative reputation in Northern Ireland because of the bigoted anti-British ethos of some of those who have held office in it down through the years. The fact that not a single member of the Students Union Executive deemed it worth their time to represent the Union in commemorating the fallen of two world wars and subsequent conflicts will do nothing to alter that image in the public’s mind.
It is grossly offensive that the Students Union should have treated the memory of the fallen from both sides of the Northern Ireland community in such a disgraceful manner. The Students Union Executive owes the entire community an apology. That is the very minimum people expect."
Pays sometime though to do a bit of further research (DUP Press Office please take note):
Remembrance Sunday
November 9th was Remembrance Sunday and at 11am a series of wreaths were laid at the cenotaph at Queen’s.
One of those wreaths was laid on behalf of the student body from the Students’ Union. As President, I was due to lay this wreath as I did last year as Vice-President but owning to a car breakdown I was stranded on the M2.
Chris Shannon a staff member of QUB laid it in my place. I made contact with the relevant people at Queen’s to apologise and have thanked Chris in person.
A number of students have contacted the SU to enquire as to why I was not there and so I thought it would be worthwhile to post this on the website to shed some light. I apologise if my absence caused offence to anyone, but as you can appreciate there was little else I could do give the circumstances.
Please feel free to contact me if you would like to discuss any aspect of this further.
Ciarnán Helferty
President
QUB Students' Union
2 comments:
I am as maybe as guilty as the DUP in that regard having just posted something similar to Weir's over on slugger. I was in attendance at the wreath laying and it was noticeable that the Student Union was not represented by at least one officer. C'est la vie and at least Ciarnan has attempted to clear things up for us.
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