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BELFAST — Other Northern Ireland parties united Thursday to denounce Sinn Féin for its leading role in an Irish Republican Army funeral deemed a super-spreader for the coronavirus.
The most senior Sinn Féin figures in Northern Ireland’s cross-community government, Deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill and Finance Minister Conor Murphy, didn’t respond to calls for them to resign during a two-hour barrage of criticism.
As O’Neill and Murphy sat in silence, lawmakers from the other four parties in the Northern Ireland Executive voiced unanimous backing for a motion that “condemns the deputy first minister and the minister of finance for their actions which have caused immense hurt and undermined the Executive’s public health message.”
Such invective reflects wider disputes weakening the Executive’s ability to govern Northern Ireland in line with the U.K. region’s 1998 peace agreement. Unusually, Thursday’s events brought together British unionists, moderate Irish nationalists and middle-ground politicians.
At issue is Sinn Féin’s organization of June 2020 funeral services for former IRA intelligence chief Bobby Storey. Mourning stretched over three days and two cemeteries and involved about 3,000 mostly unmasked people — including O’Neill, Murphy, the current and former Sinn Féin leaders Mary Lou McDonald and Gerry Adams, and more than 20 other party lawmakers. It was the largest public gathering during Northern Ireland’s past year of lockdowns.
The Northern Ireland Assembly was recalled from Easter recess once public prosecutors on Tuesday announced they would not charge 24 Sinn Féin politicians with offenses as police had recommended.
Sinn Féin leaders “knew the consequences would be dangerous, even fatal, but they made that choice. They put themselves above the law,” said Infrastructure Minister Nicola Mallon from the Social Democratic and Labour Party, Sinn Féin’s moderate competitor for Irish nationalist votes.
“This is not a green and orange issue,” said her party colleague, Dolores Kelly, noting the colors associated with the two sides of the community.
She dismissed Sinn Féin’s claims to police that they hadn’t understood public policy limiting funeral crowds to 30 people, not 3,000.
“We had no confusion about the rules. It was ‘stay at home,’” Kelly said, noting that strict caps on crowds were enforced when the SDLP’s internationally revered founding father, Nobel Peace Prize winner John Hume, was laid to rest in August.
O’Neill and Murphy addressed the Assembly to say they were sorry for hurting the feelings of families who had buried loved ones in accordance with pandemic restrictions. But they didn’t rule out a further mass gathering should another IRA commander die.
Kellie Armstrong, a lawmaker from the compromise-minded Alliance Party, said Sinn Féin appeared determined to mount “their own version of a state funeral” for each deceased IRA figure. In Storey’s case, she said, “They decided nothing would stand in the way of a public show of republican strength … not even a pandemic.”
Several lawmakers recounted their own painful experiences of attending, or avoiding, pared-down funerals of relatives and friends.
Former Ulster Unionist Party leader Mike Nesbitt said that a few weeks before Sinn Féin commandeered Roselawn Cemetery for Storey’s cremation, his 93-year-old mother was cremated there, too.
“We were allowed nine people in the crematorium, which was fortunate because she had three children, five grandchildren, and a minister,” Nesbitt said. “The church was practically empty. She deserved better. But those are the times we live in. Those are the conditions we have to accept.”
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