Much of the reaction to Sinn Féin vice-president Michelle O'Neill's views on IRA violence has focused on her use of two words.
In an interview with the BBC's Red Lines podcast, the First Minister in waiting claimed there was "no alternative" during the Troubles.
"I don’t think any Irish person ever woke up one morning and thought that conflict was a good idea, but the war came to Ireland," she said.
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"I think at the time there was no alternative, but now, thankfully, we have an alternative to conflict and that’s the Good Friday Agreement, and that’s why it’s so precious to us all."
Her stance was far from surprising for a Sinn Fein politician, particularly one from a staunchly republican background. Her father, Brendan Doris, was a Sinn Fein councillor and IRA member who served time in prison.
But the comments nevertheless provoked understandable condemnation from the families of innocent victims of IRA atrocities.
Colin Worton, whose brother Kenneth Worton was one of 10 Protestant workmen murdered by the IRA in 1976 near Kingsmills, Co Armagh, described the remarks as "sickening".
"There was always an alternative and the choice was always there - murder or not to murder, bomb or not to bomb, that choice was always there," he told the BBC's Nolan Show.
Ms O'Neill's interview also prompted criticism from other Stormont parties.
DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said there was never a justification for violence, while UUP leader Doug Beattie accused Ms O’Neill of "an attempt to justify the indefensible".
Alliance leader Naomi Long said Ms O'Neill was "wrong to say there was no alternative", adding: "Whilst those in positions of leadership are entitled to their own perspectives, they are not entitled to their own truth."
SDLP leader Colum Eastwood said: "There was an alternative to IRA violence. John Hume led that alternative and the nationalist people backed it."
The focus on the words "no alternative" overshadowed what Ms O'Neill went on to say.
"The only way we’re ever going to build a better future is actually to understand that it's okay to have a different take on the past," she said.
“My narrative is a very different one to someone who’s perhaps lost a loved one at the hands of republicans.
“But we need to be mature enough to be able to say ‘that’s okay, we’ll have to agree to differ on that one’, but let’s make sure that the conditions never exist again that we find ourselves in that scenario.”
Ms O'Neill's call for people to be "mature enough" to "agree to differ" fails to match her own party's actions.
This week campaign group Index on Censorship raised concerns over Sinn Fein MLA Gerry Kelly taking legal action against two journalists over comments about the former IRA man's role in the 1983 Maze Prison escape.
It has been listed on the Council of Europe's Safety of Journalists Platform - established to promote press freedom - as a "Level Two" threat under the category "harassment and intimidation of journalists".
Index on Censorship said the proceedings against Malachi O'Doherty and Ruth Dudley Edwards bear the hallmarks of what are described as "strategic lawsuits against public participation", or "SLAPPs".
These involve "powerful people, such as politicians" making legal threats "in response to public interest speech".
It comes just months after Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald began legal action against RTÉ over a programme which referenced the party's treatment of former Irish senator Máiría Cahill, who has said she was sexually abused by an IRA man.
Index on Censorship also notified the Council of Europe about this defamation case.
How can Ms O'Neill call for respect for differing perspectives on Northern Ireland's troubled past when senior party figures are pursuing legal proceedings which create a chill factor on public interest free speech?
If Sinn Fein is serious in arguing that to "build a better future" we must accept different views on the past, then the party should practise what they preach.
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