Ballinamore Family Festival 2024: Sinn Fein MP John Finucane attends commemoration for a former Sinn Fein Vice President and IRA Army Council leader John Joe McGirl

In his political career, McGirl served as a Sinn Fein councillor in Leitrim, chairman of Leitrim County Council, a TD, and vice president of Sinn Fein.

But according to the Dictionary of Irish Biography, McGirl was also jailed four times in the Republic for IRA activities, was a member of the IRA Army Council in the 1950s, and was IRA chief-of-staff for a brief period in 1958. At his funeral, Gerry Adams described him as "an unbroken and unbreakable Fenian".

The commemoration is being held close to Derradda Woods where the IRA took Co Leitrim supermarket executive Don Tidey in 1983 after kidnapping him. In the search for the executive which ensued, the IRA shot dead Private Patrick Kelly and Garda Gary Sheehan.

Earlier this month, David Kelly - son of Private Patrick Kelly - urged Sinn Fein MP John Finucane not to attend the commemoration for McGirl - whom he says sheltered the gang which murdered his father.

In an open letter to Mr Finucane, he said: "The decision of the Ballinamore Festival Committee to continue to promote a commemorative parade honouring an IRA man who aided and abetted the murderers of my father, Private Patrick Kelly and Garda Gary Sheehan, during the search and rescue of Don Tidey, is both morally reprehensible and a national outrage.

"The kidnappers were sheltered by John Joe McGirl and supplied by him and his acolytes during Don Tidey's twenty-three day ordeal in Derrada Wood in November and December 1983.”

He added: "Indeed, given that your own father was murdered in horrific circumstances by terrorists, it is disappointing that you are scheduled to speak at the event in honour of McGirl."

However Mr Finucane said he would attend, arguing that as everybody equally deserves "truth and justice", everyone also deserves "the right to to commemorate".