Republic of Ireland women's team IRA chanting: Cleric urges Dublin to ‘drain the putrid pus’ of indoctrination

The Republic of Ireland women's team caused major controversy when a video emerged of them celebrating their victory over Scotland on Tuesday by chanting IRA slogans.

Rev Dr David Clements of Cullybackey Methodist Church was unable to attend the Irish parliament's Public Consultation on the Constitutional Future of the Island of Ireland today because he was carrying out the funeral service for his mother. Instead his comments were read by Rev Steven Foster.

He noted that his father, William, was first of all a "Christian" and was "happy to be both Irish and British and an Ulsterman as well". A Shankill Road man, he would also have identified himself as a unionist.

He was shot dead by the IRA on a dark Saturday night in December 1985. "I have asked both publicly and privately, why he was shot...The obvious answer is that he was shot because he wore a bottle green [RUC] uniform."

He added: "My father loved sport. In a competition for a finals place between Scotland, Wales and the Republic of Ireland, he would, like me, have cheered loudest for the Irish. To see a successful Irish football team celebrate by chanting ‘oh ah, up the ‘RA’, turns my stomach."

He then posed a question for the politicians.

"In building any new future for this Island, how can we drain the putrid pus of this revisionist indoctrination that allows a new generation to ‘celebrate’ the violence of the IRA?"

The cleric concluded with another thought but "hesitatingly, lest it be thought insensitive" about the loss of "ten beautiful people" in the explosion in Creeslough in Co Donegal last week.

Many other explosions north and south have cost multiple lives over the years, he noted, including Dublin, Monaghan and many others in NI.

As a former cleric in Enniskillen he knew most of the people killed in the 1987 Remembrance Day bomb and as a local minister in 1993 he was on the scene of Shankill bomb shortly after it exploded.

"There are some striking similarities – the number of people killed, all civilians, both men and women, some related to each other, a mix of ages and a father and daughter crushed together under the rubble."

But there is also "one glaring difference" in that Creeslough is assumed to have been a tragic accident.

"At Enniskillen and on the Shankill it was different. Careful and callous planning preceded the murder of innocent men, women and children."

He added: "Believe me when I tell you that when that grief is deliberately caused by the evil intent of another human being, the burden to be carried is greatly increased".

The methodist concluded: "If we are to build a better Island for future generations, whatever agreed constitutional arrangements are developed, we must build on firm foundations having found a better way to deal with the bitter legacy of the past."

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