Pro-IRA chants by Armagh fans: We are in the days of retrospective psychological terrorism says victims campaigner

The video taken during Armagh’s victory over Down on Sunday in the Ulster Senior Football Championship appears to show a group of fans, most of them young adults, chanting the line ‘ooh ah up the ra’ from the Wolfe Tones song ‘Celtic Symphony’.

Kenny Donaldson, SEFF’s director of services, commented: “Terrorism glorification is systemic, the normalisation agenda has been advanced over the last generation and little to nothing has been done by the political system, by the authorities of law and order and those immediate organisations with whom the breaches were made and are linked.

Of Michelle O’Neill he said: “A first minister for all? For all what? For those who revel in the activities of an organisation that murdered circa 2,000 of its own neighbours?

“First minister for those who in 2023 who still treat their neighbours with contempt and seek to poke then in the eye at every turn?

“Enough of the sound bites, the choreographed smiles, the false claims of friendship.

"The historical rewrite journey that the Provisional republican movement – complete with Sinn Fein – has advanced is reaping what it has sown. Terrorism was brought to the point where it required to take peace, it never made peace.“But to spare its blushes and to keep the masses supporting its political pathway it has engineered an almost unchallenged and phoney narrative of the past, which is infecting the present and future – keeping people from truly coming together as one.”Mr Donaldson added: “We are in the days of retrospective psychological terrorism. This may well prove an even greater challenge to quell and defeat then the ugly physical terrorism that ravaged our land and beyond – terrorism motivated by sectarian and ethnic hatred.

"Jarlath Burns is the new GAA president-elect and has a huge role as do the leaders of other organisations and institutions across politics, culture, education, faith and the wider civic realm. Time will tell who is prepared to join with us and others in facing this ugly rewrite monster down.”

He said that SEFF have written to the current GAA president and also the president of Ulster GAA requesting a meeting to discuss these issues and the impact they are having upon their constituency and others.

After seeing the video clip DUP North Belfast MLA Phillip Brett said: “All right thinking people agree this has no place anywhere in society but definitely not in a sports ground.

“It’s time there was a serious conversation as to why we have seen an upsurge of incidents where people seek to glorify the IRA. That conversation needs to take place primarily within nationalism including within the GAA.”

The GAA are yet to respond to the News Letter to confirm if they are aware of the pro-IRA chants and what they intend to do about the incident.