Bobby Storey funeral: Wikipedia a battleground over IRA man’s memory as over 70 edits made

Some of the edits were simply grammatical re-arrangements or involved adding factual statements about his life.

But a great many were politically-motivated.

One area of particular contention is the details surrounding his death; references to him dying in England were removed and reinstated at least four times (with one user noting that he had sought treatment in England “despite his hatred for anything British”).

Gerry Adams, in his funeral oration, had praised the NHS’ efforts to treat Mr Storey, before going on to attack what he called “English rule”, saying that “the time is coming when we will end [it]”.

On a number of occasions, some Wikipedia users edited the page about Mr Storey to describe him as a “terrorist”; not long after, this was changed by people who replaced it with the words “freedom fighter” or “volunteer”.

Often several amendments along these lines were made per hour.

Indeed, even in the four hours since the article you are now reading first appeared, this switch – substituting “terrorist” for “volunteer” and vice-versa – has been made another three times.

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