Sinn Fein and the Cenotaph

Belfast Lord Mayor and Sinn Fein councillor Niall O'Donnghaile has explained why he refused to participate in the Council's Remembrance ceremony at the Cenotaph.  He said that the service was 'heavily militarised'.  What a pathetic excuse!  The ceremony remembers SOLDIERS who served in the ARMY and fought in a WAR.  That's why there is military involvement in the ceremony and that's why it is 'militarist'

Moreover members of Sinn Fein have had no difficulty participating in commemorative events organised on behalf of an illegal terrorist army, the Irish Republican Army.

Nevertheless I can understand why Sinn Fein do not want to take part in remembrance ceremonies at the Cenotaph.  It may have something to do with the role of the IRA during the Second World War. 

Eire remained neutral in the war but many Ulstermen and Irishmen, Protestant and Roman Catholic, fought in the cause of freedom and democracy.  However while they were fighting the Nazis, on the battlefields of Europe and elsewhere, the IRA stayed at home and fought their own squalid little war. 

The IRA mounted a terrorist campaign in Great Britain, which included the notorious Coventry bombing.  Meanwhile, in Ulster and in Eire, they murdered a number of policemen, including several who were Roman Catholics.  Oh yes, and of course they collaborated with the Nazis, protecting Nazi spies and providing information to the Luftwaffe on potential targets in Belfast for the German bombers.  In their publication War News (21 November 1940), the IRA even praised Adolph Hitler and the Nazis.

Oh here's to Adolph Hitler,
Who made the Briton's squeal.
Sure before the fight is ended,
They will dance an Irish reel.

There is a statue in Dublin  of the IRA chief of staff at that time, Sean Russell, and I believe it is the only statue in Europe in memory of someone who collaborated with the Nazis.  Russell even died on board a Nazi submarine.  That statue was erected by the National Graves Association, a core element in the republican movement, and IRA leaders attended the dedication of the statue. 

Sinn Fein seem to have no problem holding commemorative events for an IRA leader who collaborated with the Nazis.  As regards the Second World War, that seems to be their kind of remembrance.