Republicans are set to hold a large anti-monarchy rally on the Tyrone-Donegal border on the same day as the coronation of King Charles in London.
The British monarch is expected to be crowned during a lavish ceremony at Westminster Abbey on May 6.
While royalists are set to celebrate the occasion, republicans across Ireland and elsewhere will for the most part ignore the event.
It has now emerged that The 1916 Societies, which is an all-Ireland group, is planning to hold a rally on Lifford Bridge, which links Strabane in Co Tyrone and Lifford in Co Donegal, to coincide with the coronation.
Mid Ulster independent councillor Barry Monteith said the event will be a “demonstration against the normalisation of the British royal family that continues to claim Irish territory”.
The councillor said events linked to the coronation are part of a “slow march into convincing people that acknowledgement and pandering to British royalty is somehow a stepping stone to Irish unity when this is the same institution that puts medals on those who have killed generations of Irish men and woman”.
He added that “republicans are opposed to inherited power and wealth”.
Tyrone trade union activist Brian Forbes is expected to speak at the rally.
“Helping to normalise British monarchy within the wee six cannot be an acceptable position for any true republican,” he wrote on Facebook.
He said the planned rally will “help deliver a resounding republican message of defiance against monarchical privilege”.
“Challenge the outdated system of hereditary power at the top of the political, military and religious institutions that only serves to perpetuate class divisions and inequality,” he said.
The anti-monarch rally will take place at Lifford Bridge at noon on May 6.
