DUP wonders where Sinn Fein stands on IRA commemorations after remarks from Mary Lou McDonald

​The party issued a statement accusing Sinn Fein of sending out “inconsistent” signals on the matter.

It was reacting to comments the Sinn Fein president had reportedly made to journalists on Monday.

All of this is in the context of renewed scrutiny on the party following John Finucane’s address at an IRA event in south Armagh.

The report in the Irish Times said Ms McDonald had been asked by reporters if she would attend similar commemoration events were she to become taoiseach.

She was quoted as saying this in reply: “For me ... if I had the privilege of leading government I would be a taoiseach for everybody and I would act in a way to foster respect, reconciliation and understanding and never in a partisan way to give offence to anyone.”

The Irish Times then said she was “pressed further” on the issue, drawing the response: “If I were taoiseach there’s a set pattern of what the taoiseach attends and does not attend.”

And when it was put to her that previous Irish leaders have not attended events to commemorate the Provisional IRA she was said to have responded: “Well, they show up on Easter Sunday [to commemorate the 1916 Easter Rising] the last time I checked so you’ll find me at the GPO on those occasions.”

These comments were reported by one media source as meaning that “Mary Lou McDonald confirms she would not attend IRA commemorations as Taoiseach”.

Another media outlet interpreted her comments as “signalling” this, while another said they amounted to merely “hinting” at it.

Asked by the News Letter if she will still attend PIRA commemorations if she ever becomes taoiseach, the Sinn Fein press office did not respond.

The DUP issued a statement from Gordon Lyons in which the east Antrim MLA said: “There are big questions to answer within the Sinn Fein leadership.

"Mary Lou McDonald’s comments are either another recognition of Sinn Fein’s partitionist approach, a deliberate criticism of Michelle O’Neill, or both.”

This, Mr Lyons said, is because “whilst ‘joint head of government,’ as she previously styled herself, Michelle O’Neill both attended and spoke at such events”.

Mr Lyons added that whilst Sinn Fein goes by a mantra that “everyone has the right to commemorate their dead”, back in 2020 Ms McDonald demanded the cancellation of a state commemoration for those who served in the Royal Irish Constabulary.

Mr Lyons concluded: “The lack of consistency regarding commemorations is only outshone by the breathtaking arrogance shown towards innocent IRA victims.”

The notion of Ms McDonald being taoiseach has moved from being an outlying aspiration to a possible reality in recent years, with the ongoing rise of Sinn Fein at the ballot box south of the border.

The party since 2022 has been the biggest party in the NI Assembly, winning 27 MLAs (to the DUP’s 25) and taking the lead in the popular vote with 29%.

But in 2020 the party had come within a whisker of doing the same thing in the Irish republic, when it won the greatest share of the popular vote (about 25%) and was just one seat behind Fianna Fail, with 37 TDs to Fianna Fail’s 38.

The subsequent Irish government saw Fianna Fail band together with third-place Fine Gael and fourth-place Green Party to keep Sinn Fein out of power.

At the Sinn Fein “south Armagh volunteers commemoration” on Sunday, John Finucane had said he was there to “stand in solidarity with the families to remember their loved ones, and to remember their sacrifices and contributions”.

He also said that “truth and justice is something which every person who has been impacted by our conflict deserves, and is entitled to, irrespective of whether those that inflicted the harm were loyalists [roughly 30% of killings], the British state [10%], or republicans [60%]”.

He went on to say: “[O]rganisations within loyalism, the police, the British army and military intelligence, all commemorate…and I will defend, without hesitation, their right to do so.”