'So long as Sinn Fein refuses to condemn all murder it will never be seen as a normal political party' says Reg Empey as he hits out at Mary Lou McDonald shooting threat
So long as Sinn Fein declines to condemn all murders, it will “never be looked upon as a normal political party”.
That was the message last night from Sir Reg Empey, as he condemned a death threat posted online against Mary Lou McDonald.
But whilst condemning it, he also pointed towards Sinn Fein’s refusal to say that actual killings by the IRA in general were wrong.
The threat to Mrs McDonald came in the form of a rambling, hand-held video clip from a man in a threadbare balaclava, circulated on Twitter.
The man was supportive of the recent anti-immigration centre riot in Coolock, a suburb of Dublin.
He said: "Get up the lads in Coolock. F**kin’ love yas, lads, petrol-bomb the f**k out of the lot of them...
“F**k Drew Harris, he be getting shot, he be getting’ f**kin’ blasted, and I swear to God on that, he be getting shot before the end of the year.
"And see that Mary Lou? I’ll shoot her meself, for free, I will. I’ll do her for f**kin’ free, I will, yeah?”
Mrs McDonald reported it to police and said: “This death threat is an escalation in a vicious, sexist, misogynistic, racist campaign against me that has been ongoing for over a year and that has been politically contrived to cause problems between me and the working class communities we in Sinn Fein represent.
"I’m drawing the line, I’ve had enough of it.”
During the Troubles the IRA repeatedly targeted politicians with bombs and bullets.
Among them were UUP men Edgar Graham and Rev Robert Bradford (both shot dead), Lord Kilclooney (survived multiple gunshots), Charles Armstrong (fatally blown up as he left a council meeting), the DUP’s Nigel Dodds (survived being targeted by gunmen while visiting his disabled son in hospital), and the entire UK cabinet in the Brighton bomb (which left five people dead and dozens wounded).
In 2020, Mrs McDonald said in an interview that the IRA campaign was “justified” and “inevitable”, and that she herself may well have joined in.
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‘A COMPLETE FAILURE FROM SF ON THIS’
Speaking of the death threat video against Mrs McDonald, Lord Empey said: “I do condemn it. We know from our own personal experience here that's not the way to conduct ourselves.
"And if these things are not condemned, it gives the impression to those who are prepared to carry that sort of thing out that it's a kind of green light for them to do what they like.”
But he also said there had been "a complete failure of Sinn Fein to address that issue" when it comes to condemning the bloodshed of the Troubles, and "they come across as effectively turning a blind eye to IRA atrocities".
"We have a huge list of these things,” he said.
"Even a few weeks ago we couldn't get someone who's now a member of parliament [Pat Cullen] to condemn one of the worst atrocities of our Troubles [the Enniskillen bombing].
"And so long as Sinn Fein has that approach around its neck, they'll never be looked upon as a normal political party in the democratic sense.
"If they can't even reach that first threshold, I don't know where you'd begin."
After the recent assassination attempt against Donald Trump, Lord Kilclooney recalled his own brush with death.
"The shooting of former president Trump reminds me so clearly of the noise of the bullets and the loss of power which I experienced in Armagh City in 1972 as a result of an attack on my life by Irish republican terrorists,” he wrote on Twitter.
"Lost half my jaw and many teeth!”
A slew of Twitter users then responded to his online comment with mockery.
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VARADKAR WAS ‘IN FEAR’
Meanwhile on Wednesday, former taoiseach Leo Varadkar said there were times when he was fearful for his own safety during his tenure.
The former Fine Gael leader, who announced he will not be contesting the next general election, said that he never let security threats “bother” him.
“One thing I would have asked the gardai was not to advise me or give me too much information about security threats unless I really needed to know for some reason,” he said.
“I didn’t want to be distracted by potential security threats or always looking over my shoulder, so I asked that they not give me detailed briefings unless there was some particular reason to do so, and I think that’s probably the right decision.”
Sinn Fein has been contacted, and a response is awaited.