O Muilleoir: I thought McElduff video was wholly innocent

Mairtin O Muilleoir said on Thursday afternoon he believed Mr McElduff’s video – which showed him balancing a loaf of Kingsmill bread on his head on the anniversary of the 1976 IRA atrocity of the same name – had also been “wholly apolitical”.

Mr O Muilleoir, MLA for South Belfast and former Stormont finance minister, said he had believed his Sinn Fein colleague’s video had not been intended to offend.

“I said at the time it was a wholly innocent tweet in my view,” he said.

“I thought it was wholly apolitical.

“I wouldn’t have tweeted it on any other basis, and I apologised at the time.”

He added that re-tweeting it had been “absolutely” a mistake, adding: “Even Homer nods” – an expression described by Oxford English Dictionaries as meaning “even the best person sometimes makes a mistake due to a momentary lack of alertness or attention”.

Asked if he felt that was the end of the matter, Mr O Muilleoir said: “I think it is.”

Mr O Muilleoir was speaking on camera to BBC News whilst at Stormont on Thursday.

Though Mr O Muilleoir had originally issued an apology and deleted his re-tweet of the video by Mr McElduff (who quit as MP for West Tyrone last month over the controversy) after it first emerged on January 5, it is thought that Thursday’s interview with the BBC is the first time he has spoken about it in person.

Mr McElduff has insisted that he saw no link between the Kingsmill massacre (in which 10 Protestants were shot dead by a roadside in south Armagh) and the video he had posted.

However, party chairman Declan Kearney had described the episode as “inexcusable and indefensible”.

Following Mr Mairtin O Muilleoir’s remarks to the BBC, DUP MLA for Newry and Armagh William Irwin said: “After a few weeks of hiding from media, Mairtin O Muilleoir appears to think that people will have forgotten about the offence caused by he and Barry McElduff’s actions.

“It is notable that his justification for sharing the video is no different than that of Barry McElduff for posting the stunt in the first place.

“Given there is no difference even after all this time between the words of Mairtin O Muilleoir and Barry McElduff we are left to ask why there is a difference between the actions of these two men.”

Since he believes the two Sinn Fein men’s actions were no different, he questioned why Mr O Muilleoir too had not resigned.