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A tweet from a Sinn Féin TD celebrating two historic IRA attacks on the British Army has been described as “really insensitive and stupid”.
Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said Sinn Féin frequently talks about the need for a legacy infrastructure to deal sensitively with the past in Northern Ireland, but a high-ranking member comes out with this “bile” in social networks.
He said Brian Stanley’s remarks, which were later removed, is another “slip of the mask” case and the Laois / Offaly TD should know better.
“This is another case of the slip of the mask. There are many in Sinn Féin who want to advance reconciliation and are generous about it, but there are some who clearly are not and this is really useless in terms of what we are trying to do. to do in Northern Ireland. “
Northern Ireland Prime Minister Arlene Foster will write to Ceann Comhairle del Dáil regarding Stanley’s tweet, which was posted on Saturday on the centenary of the 1920 Kilmichael ambush.
He wrote to his 3,700 followers: “Kilmicheal (sic) (1920) and Narrow Water (1979) the 2 IRA operations that taught British army electives and the establishment the cost of occupying Ireland. Pity everyone they were such slow learners “.
Coveney said the comments are really useless in terms of Northern Ireland, where efforts are being made to install legacy infrastructure to help the families of victims on all sides to move forward in a sense of true reconciliation.
He said Sinn Féin needs to make a clear statement and make sure these kinds of comments don’t happen again.
Speaking on the same show, DUP MP Gregory Campbell said that Stanley’s tweet “shows a mindset that comes up from time to time from Sinn Féin people” who want to hold on to “the rhetoric of the past.”
Campbell said these “corrosive and divisive” comments cause problems for younger generations, who think this kind of rhetoric is okay.
He said it is up to Dáil and Sinn Féin to decide how to respond to Stanley’s comments.
Campbell said the DUP has been unequivocal in its condemnation of the violence as “absolutely wrong” and that it cannot be justified, defended, or “tweeted in support of.”
He said that while there are sometimes interactions with loyal former paramilitaries, the DUP has always emphasized that this does not indicate any support for terrorism and “we make it absolutely clear that there is no time or support for terror, murder or violence.”
The Kilmichael ambush was an attack carried out by the IRA during the War of Independence in which 17 members of the Auxiliary Division of the Royal Irish Police were killed.
The Narrow Water ambush took place during the riots and saw 18 British soldiers killed by the IRA near Warrenpoint, in 1979.
Stanley, who is the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, later apologized for the “content of an inappropriate and insensitive tweet I sent yesterday (Saturday).”
A Sinn Féin spokesperson said: “We note that Brian Stanley has deleted a tweet that was inappropriate and insensitive, and that he has apologized.
“We all have a responsibility in this Centennial Decade to remember and commemorate the past in a respectful way.”
Fine Gael TD Jennifer Carroll MacNeill said that at the very least, Stanley needs to recuse himself as PAC chair and that Sinn Féin must do “more than what has been done” in relation to the tweet.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Today with Claire Byrne, Ms. Carroll MacNeill, who is also a PAC member, said that she personally liked Mr. Stanley, but his tweet “has set us back considerably.”
He said that the glorification and praise of violence must stop and we must move towards a peaceful future.
Stanley’s tweet received more than 500 likes on the platform and was shared nearly 400 times.
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