Paisley accuses Dublin of 'terrorism fest'

The Government was today accused of holding a ‘‘seven-hour terrorism fest’’ with its state burial of 10 IRA men executed by the British authorities more than 80 years ago.

Democratic Unionist Assembly member Ian Paisley Junior criticised the Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and other political leaders for attending the funeral mass and re-burial in Dublin’s Glasnevin cemetery yesterday.

The ceremony was to re-bury the remains of nine of the 10 men which were exhumed from the grounds of Mountjoy Prison, where they were hanged in 1920 and 1921.

The 10th man was buried separately in his native Co Limerick, at his family’s request.

The group included Kevin Barry, an 18-year-old medical student and one of the best-known figures to emerge from the Irish war of independence.

A graveside oration was delivered by Mr Ahern.

But Mr Paisley, the DUP’s justice spokesman, said today that the State burial was insulting to unionists.

‘‘What we saw yesterday was a disgraceful seven-hour terrorism fest,’’ the North Antrim MLA said.

‘‘What we saw was the Irish state genuflecting before terrorism in an event which only served to further divide people on this island.

‘‘It was politically motivated event to boost Bertie Ahern and which paid homage and revived the ghosts of republican terrorism.’’

Mr Paisley criticised the homily given by Cardinal Cahal Daly, the former Catholic Primate of Ireland, at the funeral service for suggesting that the true inheritors of the ideals expressed by Kevin Barry and his colleagues were those committed to implementing the Good Friday Agreement.

‘‘I think the Cardinal’s claim was crazy,’’ Mr Paisley said.

‘‘If you sport that logic, then you are saying it is right to honour a loyalist gang like the Shankill Butchers on the basis that their colleagues later went on to support the Belfast Agreement.

‘‘I have no doubt there would be an outcry from people in the Republic of Ireland if monuments were to be erected to the Shankill Butchers using this sort of excuse, and yet yesterday they honoured delinquent child killers like Kevin Barry and his associates.

‘‘I mean these people were not sweet innocent youngsters but were delinquents who murdered a 15-year-old delivering bread for his colleagues and murdered soldiers younger than himself.’’

Tens of thousands of people lined the streets of Dublin yesterday to watch the cortege of 10 coffins, all draped in tricolours, pass through the city, with an army escort.