Thank you Sinn Fein (now how about expanding the shadow of the future?)…

Was the decision to redeploy Mary McArdle from her job as an advisor by Sinn Fein a routine matter of rotating special advisors? Or was it, as the Minister hinted on UTV last night, Ms McArdle’s own decision to move on. Whichever, Ann Travers’ warm words of gratitude suggest that whatever the original intention, she is determined to see it as a small act of reconciliation. There is a lesson worth unpicking here. Whatever is said in public, the Sinn …

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“Just following orders”: SF Ministers are subordinate to their own command structure

Tuesday night’s Spotlight on the killing of Mary Travers was indeed fascinating, not so much for the story of the ambush itself – although I had never seen the family members speak on camera before, and their continuing suffering was palpable – but for its insights into the inner workings of Sinn Féin. SF’s arrogant attitude towards journalists is well-known (how dare they ask impertinent questions!), but it was the juxtaposition of Carál Ní Chuilín’s bad-tempered interview and her relationship …

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“What are Sinn Fein waiting for, more people to die?”

Interesting piece on BBC Spotlight on Tuesday night reviewed controversy over the Travers’ killing of April 1984. In passing at the beginning, it suggests the HET report into the killing of Mary Travers murder came to the conclusion that this operation was a deliberate attempt to kill all three family members. They also carried a statement from Mary McArdle saying “the murder of Mary Travers was a tragic mistake which I regret”. In an impromptu interview with the BBC journalist Julian …

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“While it may be described as being a mistake, she was shot in the back”

Reports of ‘loyalist threats’ didn’t stem the criticism, now Sinn Féin’s Mary McArdle, special adviser to the Northern Ireland Culture Minister, Carál Ní Chilín, has broken her silence over her controversial appointment.  In the Andersonstown News… Mary McArdle was convicted and jailed for her involvement in the Provisional IRA murder of 23-year-old teacher, Mary Travers, who had been working at Holy Child Primary School in Andersonstown, west Belfast, and the attempted murder of Mary Travers’ father, Catholic magistrate Tom Travers, as they left mass at St Brigid’s …

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