New Sinn Fein IRA commemoration: Arlene Foster says 'London must realise these events just cannot go on'

The new event will be in Dromore, a small village in south Tyrone, a few miles north of Enniskillen where she was born.

Mrs Foster grew up in rural Fermanagh, was schooled in Enniskillen, and went on represent the town on the county council, and later served as MLA for Fermanagh and South Tyrone.

The Sinn Fein gathering will happen on Saturday, and is in honour of the 1981 hunger strikers.

Asked about the latest event, Baroness Foster told the News Letter: "It's just a continuation of their campaign to normalise criminality and terrorism.

"What concerns me is the message that's given to young people today that what happened in the 70s and 80s was ok, and of course it wasn't – it was wrong.

"Regrettably it's not a surprise, but that shouldn't take away from the fact we should call out that it's wrong.

"I think this time last year, when the Ulster Fleadh was in Dromore, an incident happened with a lot of young people in a bar singing 'ooh ahh up the Ra'.

"People say: what's the big deal? But it is a big deal. It's a big deal to normalise terrorism and glorify it because of the message it sends out to the younger generation.”

As to what the unionist community’s view on the IRA’s south Tyrone operations during the Troubles, Baroness Foster said that she knew of examples of other families who had to leave their lands as the organisation targeted “Brits” living in the borderlands.

“They were a killing machine,” said the baroness, whose own father was shot on the doorstep of their rural home and whose school bus full of pupils was blown up – both by the IRA.

"A bit like in south Armagh, our area in Fermanagh, west Tyrone and south Tyrone suffered a lot.

"And we shouldn't forget that not so far away in Omagh we had the recent attempted murder of a police officer.

"People should be reflecting on that, and the fact these commemorations send very strong messages to today's society.”

What of the notion that Sinn Fein are commemorating acts of self-sacrifice by the hunger strikers.

"Well these people were in prison because they committed criminal activities,” said the baroness.

"There was always an alternative to violence and always an alternative to terrorism…

"It's right that we keep the focus on this.

"I think it's important the government in Westminster understand we cannot continue to allow this to just happen, because the manifestation of it isn't on the people who lived through it in the 70s and 80s – it's what happens to younger people today.”

The event on Saturday is being organised by the Patsy Kelly Sinn Fein Cumann, a south Tyrone party branch named after an independent councillor who was abducted and killed by loyalists in 1974.

It is set to be addressed by English-born Donegal Sinn Fein TD Padraig Mac Lochlainn.

According to the Parades Commission, it involves a march beginning at 2.30pm in St Patrick’s Hall in Dromore, Co Tyrone.

It will proceed along the village’s main street to the “Hunger Strikers Memorial Stone” at the junction of Church Street/John Street.

Confusingly, it gives a finish time for the parade of 8.15pm… while also saying that the parade will return to its starting point from 3.15pm.

One band is set to take part – Strabane Memorial Flute Band.

The expected number of participants is listed as 200, and the number of supporters at 400.

It has not been marked as “sensitive” by the Parades Commission.

The Tyrone Sinn Féin Commemoration Committee lists the event as a “1981 hunger strike commemoration,” giving the time and place as 8pm at St Patrick’s Hall.

The commission has records of similar parades dating back at least to 2016, but ordinarily they involve several bands, not just one.

The Sunday commemoration in south Armagh has attracted a huge amount of publicity, in large part due to the involvement of John Finucane.

But, as republicans have been pointing out over the course of the past week, other Sinn Fein commemorations are happening all the time, unnoticed and unremarked upon.

Recently these have included:

• A graveside tribute by members of the Molloy/Devlin/McCauley Sinn Fein Cumann to Danny McCauley, a leading member of the West Tyrone IRA who died “on active service” on June 3, 1991 (he was said to have died of natural causes after “an IRA operation” though it is not clear what this was – although the same day in east Tyrone a trio of IRA men were shot dead by the SAS);

• A memorial service by Coalisland/Clonoe Martyrs Sinn Fein Cumann on May 14 to honour Kevin Kilpatrick, a wanted PIRA man killed in a gunfight with troops in 1971;

• A parade in Cullyhanna, south Armagh, on April 9, by the Michael McVerry Cumann (named after the former PIRA commander in the area, killed in 1973 while planting a bomb in an effort to kill police officers);

• A parade in Camlough, south Armagh, on the same date, by the Seamus Steele Cumann (named after an IRA man from the pre-Troubles border campaign era);

• A wreath-laying and memorial lecture by the Louis Leonard Cumann of Newtownbutler in December, honouring the Fermanagh PIRA man of that name.

• Olympia leisure centre Irish language dispute: People Before Profit MLA says 'the building name is Greek and no-one objects to that – so why object to Irish?'

• Coleraine bomb 50 years on: 'We need to consider victims here' says the Sinn Fein man behind bloodbath

• Coleraine bomb 50 years on: 'The IRA’s massacre spurred me on to join the UVF – and I'd never apologise for trying to fight militant Irish republicanism'