Children’s pro-IRA chant ​‘a scandal and disgrace’ says ex-garda who barely survived Provo bombing

​Jim Cannon was among the Troubles victims reacting to the clip, which was broadcast on the BBC Northern Ireland evening news on Monday.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for a victims’ charity said such scenes are a consequence of “terrorism infecting the mainstream”.

The controversy began when the BBC sent a crew to the streets of Dublin to capture the mood on Monday as Irish athletes returned home from the Olympic Games.

In a north Dublin neighbourhood a group of children, roughly of late primary school age upwards, were gathered for a ‘welcome home’ celebration for boxer Kellie Harrington after she won gold in the featherweight category.

Midway through the segment, some of the children began to chant ‘ooh ahh up the Ra’, before the bulletin cut away.

It is just the latest in a number of instances of the phrase being used over recent years, often by young people.

Last year the large-scale music festival Electric Picnic featured an appearance by rebel band The Wolfe Tones, during which the crowd chanted ‘ooh ahh up the Ra’.

They are due to play again this weekend at the festival, which describes itself as “Ireland’s largest gathering of music and arts, and the ultimate rock n’ roll circus”.

In 2022, the Football Association of Ireland was fined €20,000 by Uefa after members of the women’s national team were found guilty of breaching “the basic rules of decent conduct” by celebrating a win with the chant.

The same year Larne FC player John Herron left his team “by mutual consent” after being pictured wearing that slogan on a football top, along with an image of an assault rifle.

And in 2020 the Armagh Camogie Board said it “deeply regrets any offence” after the song was heard in their players' changing room following an All-Ireland victory over Cavan.

Mr Cannon, now aged 89, survived an IRA booby trap landmine explosion at a deserted house in central Ireland – a blast that killed his fellow officer Michael Clerkin.

He was left buried in the rubble, but managed to escape and raise the alarm. No-one was ever convicted over the explosion.

Reacting to the chanting on the BBC bulletin, Mr Cannon said he “completely condemns” it.

“That's disgraceful. It's a scandal,” he said.

“The Garda Siochana will have to see what can be done about that aspect of it …

“It's pretty difficult for the likes of me and my colleagues to be listening to that type of stuff. It's not very nice to hear.

“We were lured into the bomb explosion in Garryhinch in 1976, and of course the IRA were behind that – there's no doubt about that.

“The glorification of them, in 2024, is disgusting.”

Kenny Donaldson, the director of the charity the South East Fermanagh Foundation (SEFF), meanwhile said: “The BBC NI news report was a timely illustration of the place to which society has descended, north and south of our border.

“The normalisation agenda of terrorism, its supporters and apologists and the inactions of others has brought us to the place where kids celebrate sporting success by engaging in pro-IRA trance-like chanting ...

“This isn’t a bit of crack … this is what happens when the structures of society allows terrorism to infect the mainstream.”

He said it was the consequence of “a policy of 30 and more years in the making”.

Meanwhile, Austin Stack – whose father Brian Stack was a Portlaoise prison officer, killed by the IRA in 1983 – told the ‘Nolan Show’ yesterday about a recent case of a band singing ‘ooh ahh up the RA’ by a band in his hometown during a gig he was at.

That incident had left him “absolutely shocked”.

“It has become almost acceptable,” he said. “It’s like it’s banter. It’s like youngsters have been radicalised.”

Deputy First Minister Emma Little Pengelly said: “It is despairing and disappointing to see children and young people caught up in violence, disorder and the sectarian chanting and singing. This is not acceptable. This is not the future we want to build for Northern Ireland and for our community.”