Sinn Fein derided for positioning itself as a leading opponent of violence against women given female death toll of the Troubles

Aileen Quinton likened it to putting King Herod in charge of nursery care.

She was reacting to a debate last week in the Northern Ireland Assembly on the subject, in which Sinn Fein figures played a leading role.

Making a similar point too was Ann Travers, also bereaved in an IRA attack, who said if Sinn Fein really want to help victims of murdered women then the leadership should try to unmask their killers from within the ranks of republican movement.

• See also – 'A sad day for Northern Ireland': A daughter, widow, and niece of fatal Provisional IRA victims react to Sinn Fein's historic rise to the top of political power in the country

• ‘RIVALS SHOULD NOT LET THEM GET AWAY WITH THIS’

Mrs Quinton’s mother Alberta was one of scores of bystanders blown up in the 1987 Enniskillen bombing, which claimed 12 lives, five of them females.

The perpetrators have never been caught.

"I think it's disgusting hypocrisy, and I also think it's very weak of other politicians to let them away with it,” said Mrs Quinton of Sinn Fein’s anti-violence-against-women stance.

She also took a swipe at the praise which has been heaped on Michelle O’Neill – whose father and two uncles (Tony and Gareth) were in the IRA, and who famously said there was “no alternative” to the IRA campaign – for attending a Northern Ireland women’s football match this week.

"I'd like to be seeing everybody with any decency condemning terrorism across the board, and not letting people that supported people who murdered so many women be allowed to be at the front of a campaign against violence against women,” she said of Sinn Fein.

"It's like appointing Herod the lead on Jewish nursery care.

"Some of the fault and blame has to go to those who are not standing up to this, who are just following along and letting Sinn Fein-IRA be the cheerleaders for this.

"There's also the hypocrisy of them standing out to defend the NHS. The Enniskillen bomb had five women murdered, three of whom were in the nursing profession.

"And that apparently doesn't matter, because Michelle O'Neill went to a football match.”

• ‘MY SISTER WAS MURDERED BY MEN, AIDED BY A WOMAN’

Meanwhile Ann Travers, whose sister Mary was shot dead by the IRA in 1984 while leaving Mass, said: “When I think about my own beautiful sister Mary, whose photograph I'm looking at right now, she was 23 when she was murdered by IRA gunmen.

"An IRA woman took the gun from them and the IRA woman – Mary McArdle – has refused to say who those gunmen were.

"I just think they're a joke, an absolute joke. While I applaud anybody standing up on violence against women, I do think they need to not be hypocrites.

"I don't give credence to this idea: 'Oh the IRA did not hold any records so therefore we do not know who did what'.

"That's absolute nonsense. Northern Ireland is tiny. The island of Ireland is tiny. The republican movement and the senior people within that republican movement know precisely who were involved in murders.”

She said that Sinn Fein should help bring such people to justice for the sake of the surviving relatives.

The above comments have been put to Sinn Fein.

No response has been received at time of writing.

• TROUBLES FEMALE DEATH TOLL:

Ulster University’s CAIN web service says republican paramilitaries (mainly the Provisional IRA) killed 180 females from 1969 to 2001, of whom 153 were civilians.

Loyalists killed 113, including 109 civilians.

The military killed 20 and the RUC killed two, almost all civilians.

But the true number is likely higher.

CAIN lists 3,532 Troubles deaths between 1969 and 2001, which is relatively low; for instance, the book Lost Lives gives a total of 3,633 from 1969 to 1999.

In addition, there have been other murders (including two women, Lisa Dorrian and Lyra McKee) since the turn of the millennium.

• See also – Just the facts: The hard numbers behind the IRA's insurrection

• ‘MISOGYNY IS WHY WOMEN ARE BEING MURDERED AND WHY OUR DRESSES HAVE NO POCKETS’:

The topic has become an extremely hot one in recent years, with a raft of organisations and academics now focussed on violence against women and girls (VAWG) and on killings in particular, which they term “femicide” (as opposed to “homicide”, the killing of humans generally).

In the debate on Monday, MLAs were told there is an “epidemic” of violence against women, the cause of which is “misogyny”, with the education of men and boys being a key part of the solution.

However, each year police homicide figures show that killings of men dwarf those of women.

• See here – Sexual assault and the PSNI: ‘Messages telling people to stay safe are still extremely important’ says top officer

Opening the debate was Sinn Fein’s Emma Sheerin.

"Misogyny is the cause of so many problems,” she said.

"It is the reason why women who present to their GP with what is clearly the menopause are told that they are just a bit stressed and are prescribed antidepressants.

"It is the reason why it takes about eight years to get a diagnosis of endometriosis or polycystic ovaries.

"It is the reason why, if a female politician wears a dress, it is the subject of news articles, yet a male politician will never face the same criticism for a suit that he wears.

"It is the reason why our dresses do not have pockets.

"That is the reality, and it is the reason why women are being murdered.”