Omagh shooting: Ex-IRA bomber slams Sinn Fein commentary over shooting of DCI John Caldwell

PSNI DCI John Caldwell was shot at a sports centre in Omagh on Wednesday night. Sinn Féin policing spokesman Gerry Kelly said he was “shocked and concerned” at what he called the “murderous attack”. A wide range of party members offered similar unequivocal condemnations, including Mary Lou McDonald and Michelle O'Neill.

However the party still justifies the IRA's campaign of violence which saw it murder 273 RUC officers and 182 UDR/RIR soldiers.

Last year Michelle O'Neill attended the inveilling of a memorial in Coalisland to three IRA members and also stirred controversy when she insisted there had been "no alternative" to IRA violence. And party members have repeatedly played down concerns over public chanting of "Oooo, Ahh, Up, the Ra" in public spaces.

A Belfast Telegraph poll in 2013 found that 25% of delegates at a Sinn Fein Ard Fheis still supported "armed struggle". So has much changed in ten years?

And does the party's defence of past IRA violence in any way send mixed signals about the validity of violence which which may engender support for dissidents?

Londonderry man and former IRA bomber Shane Paul Doherty, who now repudiates violence, responded that Sinn Fein's expressions of regret over attacks on police officers "have all the sincerity of a Sweeney Todd cut-throat razor shave".

He added: "Every Sinn Fein day involves the eternal task of squaring circles - celebrating and glorifying those who previously murdered and bombed police officers while being forced to utter regret when one of the Movement's junior offspring - the New IRA or the Continuity IRA or the Real IRA - copies its parent's PIRA attacks on police officers.

"Since the Provisional IRA movement's expression of support for the PSNI it has repeatedly sought to limit that support - previously claiming the PSNI contained "dark forces" and then refusing to serve on Policing Boards until the PSNI swore never to investigate the PIRA.

"I am not aware of a single iota of information having been given to the PSNI by PIRA members since the expression of support for the PSNI - it would appear that support amounts to words and those ring very hollow."

But former IRA prisoner Anthony McIntyre, now an academic and blogger, was much more supportive of Sinn Fein.

If Sinn Fein were to "lash out" at the IRA of Bobby Sands generation, he said, "the current physical force republicans would find themselves even more energised: that they alone are the authentic inheritors of the Sands tradition. That might attract more people to the homicidal ideology of physical force republicanism than any number of 'Up The Ra' choruses."

He added: "I think the best thing that Sinn Fein can do is state that the armed campaign failed in its goals and that actions such as those against John Caldwell have zero chance of being successful.

"To revisit Omagh with republican violence is an indication of how desensitised John Caldwell’s assailants are, but with or without Sinn Fein or chants, the people carrying such attacks will still carry them out."

Sinn Fein was invited to comment.