Graves threat repulsive - Ahern

A threat by loyalist protestors to urinate on Catholic graves in Northern Ireland is an example of “repulsive” sectarianism, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said today.

Mr Ahern told the Dáil he condemned the weekend protests at a blessing of graves ceremony in Carmoney in Antrim and an attack on the Belfast church of DUP leader, the Rev Ian Paisley.

“That graveyard serves both Catholic and Protestant communities but loyalists are alleged to have threatened to exhume bodies and urinate on the resting place of Catholics in a shared cemetery,” he said.

“Loyalist groups appear to be making a comparison between the blessing ceremony and the previous forced re-routing Orange Order’s Whiterock Parade.

“Clearly this is a particularly repulsive sectarian display which I condemn outright.”

Up to a dozen windows were smashed at Mr Paisley’s Martyr’s Memorial Free Presbyterian Church on the Ravenhill Road.

“All right-thinking people – Catholic or Protestant or neither - would be repulsed by these so-called protests,” said Mr Ahern.

“Whether it is so-called nationalists or so-called loyalists, I condemn them all, equally and in an even-handed way. That’s my job and I think it is everybody’s job to do that.”