Currie fired up over Sinn Féin’s recreation of civil rights march

SINN FÉIN is accused of trying to rewrite history with the recreation of a famous Catholic civil rights march in the North.

Fine Gael senator Austin Currie yesterday lambasted the party for staging a march on Saturday marking the 35th anniversary of a famous Catholic civil rights march in Co Tyrone.

The march between Dungannon and Coalisland, which was attended by more than 500 people, was organised to highlight the cancellation of Assembly Elections in May.

Mr Currie, who was a founder member of the SDLP, said parallels could not be drawn between republicans who had links with terrorism and the non-violent civil rights movement.

He told BBC Radio Ulster yesterday: "I have to say for an organisation like Sinn Féin, linked as it is to a paramilitary group which has been responsible for over 2,000 dead, to seek to draw parallels with the civil rights movement is, in my opinion, rank hypocrisy, opportunism and an attempt to rewrite history."

The march between Coalisland and Dungannon in 1968 by the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association was a landmark event. The association campaigned for one man, one vote, an end to discrimination against Catholics by public authorities, an end to gerrymandering of council areas in favour of unionists and a fairer allocation of public housing.

Sinn Féin councillor Francie Molloy claimed the issue of people being allowed to "exercise their democratic right to vote" was still as relevant in the North today as it was 35 years ago following the cancellation in May of Assembly election by Prime Minister Tony Blair.

"As someone who was a steward on the original march, Sinn Féin was disappointed civil rights activists like Austin Currie and Eamonn McCann did not respond to our invitation for them to take part in Saturday's march," he said.

"If we go back through history, what we were campaigning for then was one man, one vote. Now we find even though we have the right to vote, we are being denied the right to exercise it by Mr Blair.

"The British government cannot unilaterally cancel elections like it did in May and think it can escape criticism. It is a denial of a basic right of all people the right to vote and it underlines how much further society needs to progress."

Mr Molloy rounded on Mr Currie for failing to see the parallels between 1968 and the current situation.

"It is easy for someone such as Mr Currie to sit in his ivory tower in Dublin and tell people how events over the past 30 years have developed.

"He can't rewrite history and write out the involvement of groups such as the Republican Clubs who acted as stewards on the original march.

"Unlike Austin, people like me did not run away from the issues and we are continuing to work to achieve equality," he added.

Among those who took part in the march were Mr Molloy, Sinn Féin's Mitchel McLaughlin, former West Tyrone MLA Barry McElduff and Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition spokesman Breandán MacCionnaith.