THE Provisional IRA's notorious 'D' Company unit held a commemoration march along the Falls Road in west Belfast yesterday to mark the Easter Rising.
The parade, organised by the Falls Cultural Society, began from Barrack Street and winded its way along the main road before turning into Albert Street and passing through the streets of the lower Falls.
Men carrying 'D' Company banners and dressed in berets and paramilitary style uniform marched in tune to flute bands.
The march finished with a service at the Garden of Remembrance on the Falls Road, where local republicans are commemorated.
There was a rendition of Amhrán na bhFiann and the Proclamation was read before a decade of the rosary was said in Irish.
A spokesman on behalf of 'D' Company and the Falls Cultural Society told the assembled crowd that they were remembering the memory of "those who fought and died to rid our country of British rule".
'D' Company, once led by Brendan 'the Dark' Hughes, was the IRA unit responsible for the Falls area and was behind some of the worst atrocities of the Troubles.
These included Bloody Friday in July 1972, when the IRA detonated 19 car bombs in Belfast in the space of an hour, killing nine people and injuring 130.
In the same year, its members are also understood to have been behind the abduction and murder of Jean McConville, the mother-of-ten who was taken from her home in the Divis Flats by republicans in 1972.
Her remains were found on Shelling Hill beach in Co Louth in August 2003.
