Northern Ireland Assembly: 'I was orphaned by IRA aged 12 - this is why Sinn Fein's Michelle O'Neill's speech on reconciliation isn't credible'

As it was well known that Sammy's mother had died four months earlier, the IRA knew that killing his father would leave him an orphan.

The new First Minister, Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill, claimed in 2022 that there had been “no alternative” to the IRA's 30 year campaign, which claimed almost 1,800 lives.

"Much suffering and trauma persists as a result of the injustices and tragedies of the past," she told the Assembly on Saturday. "We must never forget those who have died or been injured, and their families. I am sorry for all the lives lost during the conflict. Without exception.

"As First Minister I am wholeheartedly committed to continuing the work of reconciliation between all of our people. The past cannot be changed or undone. But what we can do is build a better future. I will never ask anyone to ‘move on’, but I do hope that we can ‘move forward’. I want us to walk in harmony and friendship."

However Mr Heenan queried what Ms O'Neill meant by her words.

"What is to be Michelle? That there was no alternative to violence or that you are sorry for all the lives lost?" he asked.

"I think there was a lot of semantics in her speech. Will she be a First Minister for all or will she continue to attend events which commemorate IRA terrorists? She has never offered any repentance or condemned the Provisional IRA for their acts of terrorism. That's the move she needs to make to demonstrate her bona fides on reconciliation."

He still carries wounds of being orphaned by the IRA at 12.

"I carry them every day. There's not a day I don't think about what happened. It is just rawness. I put a big reliance to get through all these things on my faith, my family and my community."

His father was not a member of the security forces. He had resigned as a reserve member of the Ulster Special Constabulary some 15 years previously.

Sammy has publicly asked the local MP, Sinn Fein's Chris Hazzard, and a string of local Sinn Fein councilors, to publicly condemn his father's murder.

"But they cannot do it - nor will they even acknowledge me or my father's murder.”

In Castlewellan there is a republican memorial where Sinn Fein gather every Easter to celebrate their 'freedom fighters’, he says.

"But what they are really celebrating is the IRA murdering 70 people in south Down, where they bombed and intimidated Protestants out of their homes and businesses in towns like Castlewellan.

"As a result young nationalists generally romanticise the IRA, whose victims have now almost all been bullied off social media.

"So republicans can't have it both ways, you are either for genuine reconciliation or you're not. To turn around and glorify IRA terrorism doesn't demonstrate sincerity to me if you are serious about reconciliation.”