SF publicised details of Bobby Storey’s ‘public’ wake by both email and via Facebook

Sinn Fein not only passed details of Bobby Storey’s wake to its own members, telling them via email that it was open to the public, but party branches also circulated those details on Facebook for the whole world to see.
PACEMAKER, BELFAST, 26/6/2020: A guard of honour flanks the hearse carrying the body of leading republican Bobby Storey to his Anderonstown home in Belfast.
 PICTURE BY STEPHEN DAVISONPACEMAKER, BELFAST, 26/6/2020: A guard of honour flanks the hearse carrying the body of leading republican Bobby Storey to his Anderonstown home in Belfast.
 PICTURE BY STEPHEN DAVISON
PACEMAKER, BELFAST, 26/6/2020: A guard of honour flanks the hearse carrying the body of leading republican Bobby Storey to his Anderonstown home in Belfast. PICTURE BY STEPHEN DAVISON

Almost five months after the funeral, both Sinn Fein and the police are still facing questions and criticism over the affair – with claims that the PSNI has been extremely slow to act over the alleged breaches of Covid rules seen during the mass farewell to the dead IRA enforcer on June 30.

The most recent twist in the story came when Ireland’s Sunday Independent carried a story at the weekend, saying Mr Storey’s wake details were emailed to Sinn Fein members, along with a declaration that the general public were welcome to visit the house.

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But the News Letter has found statements with this same information circulating on the web too.

On June 26, Andersonstown Social Club PD posted a message on its Facebook page saying: “The recent and continued success of the Andersonstown Social Club would not have been possible without the visionary leadership of Bobby Storey.”

It then gave the times and location of the wake, saying it “will be open to the public”.

This was in turn republished on the Facebook site of the Tyrone Sinn Fein Commemoration Committee.

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In addition, the Facebook page of Dunmurry Sinn Fein (a large area of south-west Belfast where many of his supporters would live) also posted the same information on June 26.

The upshot is this: not only did Sinn Fein reportedly email details of his wake to its own restricted membership list, but at least two of its branches posted it online for the general public to find too.

DUP Policing Board member Mervyn Storey recalled yesterday that Sinn Fein’s Northern Irish leader Michelle O’Neill had said “we actively discouraged people” from coming to the funeral, during a hearing of Stormont’s Executive Office committee on July 1.

The DUP MLA said last night: “The deputy first minister should come to the Assembly chamber and make a statement on this matter and if the Committee was misled ... then the minister must urgently correct the record and apologise to the Assembly.”

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DUP MLA Christopher Stalford told ‘The Nolan Show’ yesterday that the whole saga shows that “Michelle O’Neill’s credibility, and actually that of wider Sinn Fein, around public health messaging, is shot”.

But pressed on what the DUP is prepared to do about it, he said: “I don’t believe that’s an excuse for us to collapse the government of Northern Ireland in the middle of a pandemic. I think the best we can do is work constructively to try and steer the country through what’s a very difficult situation.”

It was revealed last week Ms O’Neill had not even been interviewed by police regarding her presence at the west Belfast funeral procession (and that officers have not requested media broadcasters’ footage of the event either).

UUP leader Steve Aiken said yesterday: “If this was Michelle from the Falls Road or the Shankill Road, rather than a senior Sinn Fein politician, I’ve no doubt that a very different approach would have been taken by the police”.

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The only comment from the PSNI yesterday was a statement in the name of Mark Webster, the Cumbria police deputy leading the probe, saying: “As this investigation remains active and ongoing there will be no further public commentary at this time.”

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