A loyalist group has been criticised for attempting to link the GAA to the IRA after posting a picture online of young Sinn Fein supporters.
The Facebook page of the UDA-linked UPRG in north Antrim shows three young people, two of them wearing GAA tops, posing with West Belfast MP Paul Maskey on election day last week.
A message reads: "Sinn Féin=IRA=GAA. No there’s no connection."
The UDA in north Antrim is the most active loyalist paramilitary group, having been blamed for a series of gun attacks this year including the murder of a man in Ballymoney in January.
Around a dozen people ‘liked’ the Facebook post and one person wrote: "They make the connection the minute an RC child first steps inside a primary school and build on it from there."
Earlier this year SDLP East Derry MLA John Dallat said he was appalled at another post by the group which claimed that all GAA supporters back the IRA.
On that occasion, the UDA-linked group said: "When you see someone out with a GAA kit on, remember that they might as well say I am a republican and support the IRA... The GAA is the sporting wing of SF/IRA."
Mr Dallat, a member of Kilrea GAC, called on police to investigate.
Last month both SDLP and Sinn Féin candidates were criticised on social media after claims that the association was being drawn into party politics following references to the GAA in election literature.
Sinn Féin said last night that the "political and social insight of the UPRG never fails to surprise".
"The fact that they are making issue of young people in west Belfast wearing GAA tops whilst standing beside their elected representative says more about the UPRG than anything else," a spokesman said.
"The UPRG failed to field a single candidate in last week’s elections. It seems that Facebook is the one of the few outlets for this organisation to play out such tired politics.
"Twenty-one years after the first ceasefire the armed grouping which the UPRG represent are increasingly active especially in the North Antrim and East Derry areas. Their focus should lie there and they should aim to bring this violence to an end."
The UPRG did not respond to requests for comment from The Irish News.
Meanwhile, loyalists have said they are planning to protest at a republican parade in Belfast city centre next year to mark the centenary of the Easter Rising.
The Loyal Peoples Protest said that when republicans will mark "the centenary of the failed Easter Rising", loyalists plan to line the route of "this walk of shame".
