Why did gardaí film our parade?

I agree with the line in your editorial (March 24) which proclaimed “nobody should have the right to denounce anybody for commemorating the people of 1916”. I take it then that “anybody” includes the right of political parties and their supporters to commemorate those who took part in the Rising.

Therefore, if I am right I must conclude the Irish Examiner should be interested to ask why five car loads of plainclothes gardaí were present at an Easter commemoration organised by Sinn Féin in Youghal last Sunday. One garda filmed the hundreds of law-abiding citizens of the town as they made their way to the republican plot in the local cemetery.

Around the same time as a Sinn Féin TD was giving the main oration in Youghal, the Taoiseach was delivering another outside the GPO in Dublin. I am sure there were no plainclothes gardaí filming those in attendance at that commemoration, so people really are not free and equal to commemorate without being intimidated by an arm of the State which clearly attempts to criminalise those wishing to do nothing more than honour the republicans of 1916.