A Troubles campaigner has branded those behind an event honouring an IRA man as “delusional”.

Kenny Donaldson of the Troubles campaign group SEFF (which used to stand for South East Fermanagh Foundation, and now stands for Supporting, Empowering, Fair and Focused) added his voice to those expressing disgust at the Volunteer Jim Lynagh Winter School gathering at the weekend.

It took place on Saturday in the former St Eugene’s Primary School to the east of Lisnaskea in south-east Fermanagh.

It was billed as involving talks about “republicanism in the Tyrone, Fermanagh and the border counties, past, present and future” and “Palestine, Ireland and the Black and Tans: imperialism past, present and future”.

placeholder image — Jim Lynagh is understood to have been the leader of the Loughgall operation in which he lost his life

The school site is no longer in the hands of the Catholic Church, which sold it around four years ago. Nor are the Department of Education or Education Authority involved in the site.

Lynagh was understood to be the leader of the IRA gang involved in the Loughgall ambush in 1987, when eight IRA men (and one civilian) were killed after being ambushed while attacking a police station with guns and a bomb.

Lynagh was also a Sinn Fein councillor, but was said to have wanted to break away from the provisional movement and forge an even more militant path.

Mr Donaldson said: “Jim Lynagh was a systemic terrorist directly linked to approximately. 30 murders (with some intelligence analysts believing this to be a conservative estimate).

"Amongst murders he is strongly linked to are the murders of the Stronges – Sir Noman and his son James at Tynan Abbey, which was then burnt down in the aftermath of the assassinations.

"Jim Lynagh held a reputation for ruthlessness. His nickname was 'The Executioner' and he lived up to that brand over many years.

"At the point of Loughgall, Jim Lynagh along with a small group of others was planning a departure from the control of The Provisional IRA to mount an all out offensive campaign against army and police installations along the border.

"Sinn Fein seeks to attach itself to the legacy of Jim Lynagh which is scandalous on several levels.

"Firstly, that they would connect with a bloodthirsty terrorist who was involved in the murder of his own neighbours without hesitation, but also that they would seek to engineer a revisionist version of history that he died whilst linked to the Provisional Irish Republican strategy.

"He was not – he ceased to believe in it.

"Thus the choice of venue for this event planned within a former School in south Fermanagh - St Eugene's is all the more chilling.

"The 1916 Societies and their fellow travellers are the organisers. The choice of venue for the event is quite purposeful: they are seeking to send a message that they are able to permeate somewhere which was once a place of learning and safety for the purpose of holding an ideologically motivated event, named after one of the most infamous and cold-blooded terrorists of the entire terrorist campaign – an individual who was wedded to crime, crimes motivated by ethnic and sectarian hatred…

"For those families and individuals impacted by the terror reign of Jim Lynagh (Provisional IRA commander for the East Tyrone/North Monaghan Brigade) there is no end to their pain.

“Witnessing such an individual held up as an honourable community leader illustrates the delusional thinking of those involved and supportive.”

The late politics editor of the News Letter Henry McDonald, during his time at The Guardian, wrote that a book published in 2002 – A Secret History of the IRA – revealed that Lynagh and two other men had “discussed procuring arms independently of the IRA” with their aim being “to go on the offensive, destroying police stations and seizing territory to establish so-called 'liberated zones' inside Northern Ireland”.

"Lynagh, McKerney, the bulk of the IRA unit killed at Loughgall and McElwaine were becoming increasingly disillusioned with the republican movement's direction, and in particular the policies of Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams,” wrote Mr McDonald.

“That frustration led Lynagh's men towards mutiny."