The daughter of a victim of the Balcombe Street gang has said the appearance of her father's killers at Sunday's Sinn Fein ardfheis would not stop her from calling for a Yes vote in the referendum on the Belfast Agreement.
Dr Diana Hamilton-Fairley said it was "incredibly hard" to see the four IRA men attending the ardfheis, but she would give them "the benefit of the doubt" if it brought peace to the North.
Her father, Dr Gordon Hamilton, who was a prominent cancer specialist, was killed by an IRA car bomb in London in October, 1975.
Dr Hamilton-Fairley flew from London to Belfast yesterday to support the non-party campaign for a Yes vote, where she was joined by relatives of other victims of IRA violence. These included Mr Alan McBride, whose wife was killed in the Shankill Road bomb in 1993; Mr John Maxwell, whose 15-yearold son was killed in the explosion on Lord Mountbatten's boat in 1979; and Mrs Beryl Quigley, whose first husband, Bill McConnell, an assistant governor at the Maze prison, was shot dead in 1984.
Referring to the Balcombe Street gang who were convicted of her father's killing, Dr HamiltonFairley said: "They are alive and my father is dead. Nothing can change that, nothing will bring him back.
"But I am prepared to give these people the benefit of the doubt if it means that no-one else will ever again have to go through the pain and suffering of having someone snatched away because two communities cannot find a way to live as one."
Dr Hamilton-Fairley said her father was 45 when he was killed and that he had "so much more to give". She missed him terribly even after 22 years.
"It has been a long and painful journey, but I believe very powerfully that the people of Northern Ireland must find a way to live together in peace without the constant threat of bombs and bullets."
She said both sides would have to give up "some of their most precious tenets" in order to gain the ultimate goal of peace.
Mr McBride said he was voting Yes but called on those responsible for violence "to come clean and say sorry", and to start to decommission some of their weapons.
"I know decommissioning has been used as an obstacle to progress. But for me, the issue is not just about getting rid of guns and bombs from our society, it is about trust. They could decommission some of their weapons to help me have trust."
Mr McBride's wife, Sharon, was 29 when she was killed. Their daughter was two years old at the time. He said he was voting Yes because he didn't want anybody else to suffer as he did.
"I honestly believe in my heart that this deal offers us the best way to move forward. I don't think it threatens anyone."
Mr Maxwell said he believed the Agreement had the potential to bring an end to violence.