Top Sinn Fein man dismisses politicians who criticise IRA chants saying they have more important things to do

Matt Carthy, the party’s farming spokesman and TD for Cavan-Monaghan, was reacting to the ongoing furore over the chanting, which has seen a number of sympathisers across Ireland filming themselves repeating the same lyrics.

The saga began on Wednesday, October 12, when the Irish women’s football team beat Scotland one-nil, qualifying for the women’s World Cup for the first time ever.

Afterwards members of the squad huddled together and sang ‘Celtic Symphony’ by the Wolfe Tones, a rebel song which ends with a chant of “ooh ahh, up the ‘Ra!”.

This was filmed and uploaded on to the internet, sparking intense criticism and causing the team to apologise.

But this then touched off a trend of other people chanting the song, ranging from a large group of men in a bar in Dublin airport, to a woman on TikTok who filmed small children on the back seat of her car singing the pro-IRA lyrics.

On Saturday Conor McGregor, the world-renowned Irish UFC star, joined in.

He posted a video clip online of a newscaster asking whether an apology would be made over the IRA song. The clip then cuts to McGregor saying “I’d like to take this chance to apologise… to absolutely nobody!” before the song ‘Celtic Symphony’ kicks in, to the sight of him swaggering through a ring.

Following the outcry about the song, it has reportedly shot to the top of download charts in Ireland.

When asked about the issue by RTE, Mr Carthy said: “The only thing that any of us as political representatives or anybody else needed to say about the Irish women's soccer team is that they're an amazing group of young women who did our country and nation absolutely proud..

"All of us have an obligation to ensure that our words or our actions don't cause hurt to victims of the conflict.

"I'm not sure of the value of us pointing fingers at young people who are having a sing-song in a pub brings about [sic].”

He added that NIO minister Steve Baker and ex-DUP boss Arlene Foster, who both condemned the chanting, “should have more important things to worry about, I have to say, considering that the institutions are on a stalemate and because of the huge devastation that Brexit has caused”.

He added: “And as we approach the month of November where we will be inundated with tributes and commemorations and celebrations of the British Army, and not a word will be spared, or a thought, for the victims - the many victims of British state violence in the north.

"So we're on a reconciliation process, 20 years into a peace process. Those of us in political leadership should be concentrating on what we can do to actually ensure we have institutions up and running rather than point fingers at others.”

According to the book Lost Lives, an encyclopaedia of Troubles deaths, the IRA was behind 48.7% of all killings from 1966 to 1999 – 1,771 in total.

This is a significant underestimate however.

Some 135 killings are just attributed to “other republican”, and it is highly likely many such unclaimed fatal attacks involved IRA men.

Of course, for the most part the figures also omit people whose deaths did not occur soon after an attack but were hastened substantially by injuries received, or things like premature alcohol-fuelled fatalities and suicides resulting from trauma.

Of those 1,771 people killed outright by the IRA, the biggest single category of victim was civilians (636), followed by regular army, air force, and Royal Navy (443), police and police reservists, including Gardai (284), the UDR/RIR (182), fellow republicans (161), loyalist paramilitaries (28), prison wardens (23).

All told, republicans were behind 58.8% of all deaths in the Troubles, loyalists 28.9%, and the state (overwhelmingly the regular army and SAS) 10.1% – with a remaining 2.2% of deaths caused by unknown killers.

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