Protest as dinner hails IRA dead
VICTIMS campaigners have staged a protest at Londonderry's Guildhall against a 'dinner dance' commemorating dead IRA members.
The event was organised by Sinn Fein-linked republican organisation the Derry Volunteers Com-memorative Committee.
Willie Frazer of victims' group FAIR said that 12 protestors attended the event and held up posters in front of hundreds of people who turned out.
"We were demanding justice for victims of terrorism," he said.
The victims campaigner said that there were a few verbal exchanges with some of the guests.
And he expressed concern that those attending the event were there to glorify the actions of the IRA.
And he expressed concern that those attending the event were there to glorify the actions of the IRA.
"But we will not allow them a free run," he said.
"We will not allow them to present this as some sort of dinner dance to commemorate soldiers in a conflict.
"Because people are going to ask – who are these victims outside the dance? And the answer is that we are the victims whose loved ones were murdered and had bits blown off them by the IRA."
A Sinn Fein spokesman agreed with Mr Frazer that around 300 people attended the dance.
"The event has been held for 20 years in local hotels so I don't understand why all the fuss this year," he said.
He rejected any significance in the fact that this was the first time the event had been held in the Guildhall, a public facility.
"The people attending are ratepayers and are as entitled to use it as anyone else," he said.
The spokesman confirmed that the IRA had previously blown up the building but added that although the dinner was in honour of IRA volunteers, those attending it were not the IRA.
He also insisted that there had been no verbal exchanges with the protestors, saying that they had been completely ignored.
Unionist politicians in Londonderry had been scathing at the staging of the event at the Guildhall – regarded as a shared space for all communities in the city.
UUP Alderman Mary Hamilton, severely injured by no-warning Provisional IRA bombs in Claudy Village in 1972 said last week: "There are lots of people who lost loved ones during the Troubles and it is still a very sensitive issue for people. I believe it should be held in some other venue, not in a civic venue like this."
The DUP's Gregory Campbell also hit out at the event: "It will go down very badly in the Protestant community because people will see it as Sinn Fein still not completely disengaging from their bloody and gory past," he said.
A council spokesman said: "The Guildhall is run on a commercial basis and is therefore available for general hire."
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Monday 28 May 2012
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