It has emerged that after a full page advert appeared this week in a local paper across Donegal commemorating the deaths of IRA men since 1921 that these events have been partly funded by Donegal County Council. The Council funds had been supposedly earmarked for commemorations dealing only with the Dublin rising.
The adverts listed names of IRA men under what was termed ‘Republican roll of honour Tir Chonaill command’ alongside Dublin rebellion figures. The logos of Donegal County Council, the Republic’s Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, the Department of Environment, Community and Local Government as well as the Dublin government’s official 1916 symbol are all displayed under the names of men such as Gerard McGlynn and Seamus Harvey who blew themselves up transporting a bomb across the border in 1973.
In all 12 events are listed, the organisers of four of which have received official Council funding totaling €1600. Apart from reminding us of another instance of SF double speak, it calls into question what the Council thought happens at Irish Republican Easter commemorations and what the government thinks of it’s symbols being used in the public press to promote modern day terrorism.
Low churchman and unreformed culchie living, working in leafy south Belfast.