Sinn Féin under fire over IRA t-shirt site

SINN FÉIN president Gerry Adams yesterday brushed aside claims that his party is glorifying violence by advertising IRA t-shirts on its new website.

Ulster Unionist Party representative David McNarry has made a formal complaint to the Chief Constable calling for an urgent investigation, while the SDLP's Eugene McMenamin said the website was turning back the clock to the years of violence.

The website, launched yesterday, includes a link to a republican bookshop which sells t-shirts with logos such as "Sniper At Work" a famous road sign erected by IRA supporters in south Armagh.

Mr Adams dismissed the complaints as "silly season nonsense".

He said: "I want to thank both the SDLP and the unionists for publicising the website.

"I think what they are talking is complete nonsense.

"The reality is that there is a link on the website. It is a link into a bookshop which sells t-shirts. If anyone is suggesting for one moment that Sinn Fein's role in the peace process, our commitment to the peace process, our involvement in the peace process and the future of the peace process is in question because a shop sells t-shirts with the word IRA on it, then they just want to get real."

Senior Ulster Unionist David McNarry demanded the removal of the pro-IRA merchandise from the Sinn Féin website and said he had lodged a formal complaint about it to the Chief Constable's office.

He also protested about it to the US Consulate in Belfast.

"I and many other unionists find this disgusting, provocative and highly offensive," Mr McNarry said.

"Victims of IRA terrorism will recoil in horror that such T-shirts even exist, and the fact that a so-called political party can fill its coffers on the basis of such imagery is a further degrading slap in the face.

"I am calling for the sake of decency, and out of respect for the victims of terrorism, for the Sinn Féin website to be removed until the shop stops selling this kind of disgusting product."