Northern Ireland

Unionists slam Belfast Mayor's attendance at IRA memorial event 'repugnant'

Lord Mayor of Belfast, Sinn Féin's Tina Black. Picture by Alan Lewis, Photopress.
Lord Mayor of Belfast, Sinn Féin's Tina Black. Picture by Alan Lewis, Photopress. Lord Mayor of Belfast, Sinn Féin's Tina Black. Picture by Alan Lewis, Photopress.

A decision by the Lord Mayor of Belfast to attend an IRA memorial event has been criticised as "repugnant" by unionists.

Sinn Féin's Tina Black was pictured among crowds on the Falls Road on Sunday for the event marking the deaths of members of a notorious IRA unit.

The 'D Company' was responsible for some of the worst atrocities of the Troubles, including the Bloody Friday bombings in July 1972.

Nine people were killed and 130 injured after 19 car bombs were detonated across Belfast within an hour.

That year members of D Company were also understood to have carried out the abduction and murder of Jean McConville, a mother-of-ten taken from her home in the Divis Flats in 1972.

Belfast City Council have said the mayor was attending the event in a personal capacity.

The Ulster Unionist council leader in Belfast, Alderman Sonia Copeland, said: “Tina Black`s attendance at an event to commemorate dead terrorists from the Provisional IRA`s ‘D Company’ is totally unacceptable and a slap in the face to the families who lost loved ones at their hands. The Lord Mayor of Belfast should be nowhere near events like this.

She added: “The Provisional IRA`s so-called ‘D-Company’ carried out some of the most heinous and barbaric murders during the Troubles, murdering innocent people as they were shopping on the streets of Belfast. They launched cowardly no-warning bomb attacks against this city and it is repugnant that the Lord Mayor should take part in an event such as this.”

A statement from DUP council members to the Belfast Telegraph called it “another demonstration of Sinn Féin’s inability to offer leadership to the entire community.”

They added: "The attendance of the Lord Mayor at such an event would be unacceptable at any time.

“However, for such a glorification of terrorism to take place when citizens of Belfast were marking the 29th anniversary of the Shankill bombing, is a calculated insult to innocent victims in our city.”

Sinn Féin have been contacted for a response.

In an earlier statement, a spokesperson said that the Lord Mayor had been attending the 50th anniversary “killings of a number of local people by state forces” and the “deaths of a number of other local republicans.”

"Everyone has the right to remember their dead with dignity and respect, a right enshrined in the Good Friday Agreement.

“And Sinn Féin will continue to stand shoulder to shoulder with the families of our patriot dead.”