SAOIRSE32

Sinn Féin

Published: 18 November, 2005

Sinn Fein Policing Spokesperson, North Belfast MLA Gerry Kelly has called on the British Secretary of State Peter Hain to make a statement after it was confirmed that his details were among files stolen from Castlereagh last year found in the possession of Loyalists.

Mr Kelly said:

“Across Belfast a large number of republicans have now been visited and informed that their lives are in danger from loyalist paramilitaries who had obtained their personal details. This information comes from the Castlereagh collusion file passed to unionist paramilitaries by the RIR and covered up by British Ministers, the PSNI and British Army over the past 16 months.

“I have requested urgent meetings with both the British and Irish governments to discuss this matter. It is unacceptable that this information has been the hands of Loyalists for 16 months yet only now are people being warned that their lives are threatened and are being provided with only minimal information.

“The silence from Peter Hain on this matter is deafening. If there is to any confidence that the British government is prepared to take the issue of collusion seriously then we need at the very least a statement from Peter Hain. I would also question why information on public representatives is being held in these files in the first place.

“The British government have been dishonest about this entire matter. When I questioned the previous security minister, Ian Pearson, about this matter he attempted to down play it and did not even inform myself or my party colleague Margaret McClenaghan, who accompanied me to the meeting, that our names where on these files. We need to know how many names are contained in these stolen files and how many people have now been informed that their lives are under threat.

“This situation is a scandal. The British government through the NIO are complicit in the cover up of this. It provides clear evidence of collusion. It is for that reason that a separate inquiry is required to get to the truth.” ENDS

Daily Ireland

A new effort to make the bullying of children a thing of the past in the North’s schools was launched yesterday.
Statutory and voluntary bodies with a key interest in children and their education have joined forces to form the Northern Ireland Anti-Bullying Forum.
At the same time, with Anti Bullying Week just three days away, ChildLine Northern Ireland unveiled its new freephone helpline specifically aimed at helping children and young people worried about bullying.
Last year ChildLine NI counselled over 2,100 children about bullying – making it the single biggest issue that children called the charity about.
Meanwhile, the new forum will formulate a common strategy, co-ordinate anti-bullying efforts and seek to raise the profile of the issue among schools and pupils. Members of the new forum will in turn represent the North on a larger British and Irish Anti-Bullying Forum.
Local representatives from Save the Children, ChildLine NI, the NSPCC, Barnardos, The Children’s Law Centre, Disability Action, parents Advice Centre, the Department of Education, the Education and Library boards together with teachers representatives are all on the forum.
Geraldine Loughran from Save the Children will chair the new forum. She said: “We are committed to working together to create and promote an environment free from bullying for children and young people.
“We believe that their rights must be upheld in line with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which states that they should be protected from all forms of cruelty.”
The Department of Education is currently researching the extent of bullying in schools to update three-year-old research which showed 40 per cent of primary school children and 30 per cent of those in post-primary schools fell victim to bullies.
Ms Loughran said: “We all know that school bullying can have serious consequences for children. It can lead to academic underachievement, physical and emotional distress, loss of self esteem, eating disorders and truancy.”
The strategy formulated by the new forum should ensure greater help not just for children who are bullied but those who do the bullying, she said.
“We recognise that bullying has an emotional impact on those responsible, as well as those on the receiving end,” Ms Loughran said.
The ChildLine anti-bullying line — 0800 44 1111 — operates 24 hours a day, staffed by trained volunteers.

BreakingNews.ie

18/11/2005 - 13:20:17

Sinn Féin MEP Mary Lou McDonald is to bid for a Dáil seat in Taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s constituency, it emerged today.

Ms McDonald confirmed she would seek a party nomination to contest the Dublin Central constituency at the next General Election.

The selection convention will take place on December 1 in Aughrim Street Parish Centre in Stoneybatter.

An Phoblacht

Photo: Tom Barry

On 21 November 1920 a column of 36 IRA riflemen were mobilised at Clogher, County Cork, for a week’s training in advance of an attack on the Auxiliaries. At 2am the following Sunday the IRA Flying Column fell in at Ahilina. Each man was armed with a rifle and 35 rounds of ammunition. A few had revolvers, and their commander Tom Barry who had been appointed Training Officer and Commanding Officer of the 3rd West Cork Brigade Flying Column, had two Mills’ bombs, which had been captured in a previous ambush at Toureen.

At 3am the men were told for the first time they were moving in to attack the Auxiliaries between Macroom and Dunmanway. Fr O’Connell had heard the men’s confessions at the side of the road. On an extremely cold, wet night, the men began moving to Kilmichael to take on the dreaded Auxiliaries.

All IRA positions were occupied at 9am. The hours passed slowly. Towards evening the gloom deepened over the bleak Kilmichael countryside. At 4.05 pm. an IRA scout signaled the enemy’s approach.

The first lorry came round the bend into the ambush position. Tom Barry, dressed in military style uniform stepped onto the road with his hand up. The driver gradually slowed down. When it was 35 yards from the Volunteers command post a Mills’ bomb was thrown by Barry and simultaneously a whistle blew signalling the beginning of the ambush.

The bomb landed in the driver’s seat of the uncovered lorry. As it exploded, rifle shots rang out. The lorry, its driver dead, moved forward until it stopped a few yards from the small stone wall in front of the command post. While some of the Auxiliaries were firing from the lorry, others were on the road and the fighting was hand-to-hand. Revolvers were used at point blank range, and at times, rifle butts replaced rifle shots. The Auxiliaries were cursing and yelling as they fought, but the IRA coldly outfought them. In less than five minutes nine Auxiliaries were dead or dying.

Barry and the three men beside him at the Command Post, moved towards the second lorry. This had been engaged by No 2 Section, which was in the middle of the ambush area, high up on the rocks.

The second group of Auxiliaries had taken up positions beside the ditch. Some had taken cover behind their lorry as the fight went on. Barry, with the three men at the Command Post, crouched along the dyke. When they were about half way between the two lorries they heard the Auxiliaries shout: “We surrender! We surrender!” Some actually threw away their rifles and the firing stopped. The Volunteers accepted the surrender. In No 2 Section some Volunteers who thought it was over, stood up. But the Auxiliaries again took up their guns; some used their revolvers to open fire. Following this encounter three Volunteers were fatally wounded.

When he saw this Tom Barry gave the order: “Rapid fire and do not stop until I tell you.” The Auxiliaries once again shouted “We surrender” but on this occasion the order was given to “Keep firing on them. Keep firing, No 2 Section. Everybody keep firing on them until the ceasefire”. The small IRA group on the road was now standing up, firing as they advanced to within ten yards of the Auxiliaries. When the ceasefire order was finally given there was an uncanny silence as the sound of the last shot died away. Sixteen Auxiliaries were dead and one seriously wounded. Volunteers Michael McCarthy of Dunmanway and Jim Sullivan of Rossmore also lay dead, and Pat Deasy was dying.

The lorries were set ablaze. The column was ordered to drill and march for five minutes. They then halted in front of the rock where Michael McCarthy and Jim O’Sullivan lay, where they presented arms as a tribute to the dead Volunteers. Just 30 minutes after the opening of the ambush the column moved away to the south, intending to cross the Bandon River upstream from the British-held Manch Bridge. Eighteen men carried the captured enemy rifles slung across their backs. It started to rain again and the men were soon drenched. The rain continued as the IRA marched through Shanacashel, Coolnagow, Balteenbrack and arrived in the vicinity of dangerous Manch Bridge. The Bandon River was crossed without incident and Granure, eleven miles south of Kilmichael, was reached by 11pm

The engagement at Kilmichael was the first between the IRA and the previously invincible Auxilaries and one of the most important battles of the Tan War. The British establishment could not comprehend how 18 battle-hardened officers fell in combat against what they previously dismissed as ‘rabble’.

The first engagement between the IRA and Auxilaries, took place at Kilmichael, County Cork, on 28 November 1920.

An Phoblacht

Book review - That Day’s Struggle: A Memoir 1904-1951
By Seán MacBride
Edited by Caitríona Lawlor
Published by Currach Press

Fascinating insider’s account of turbulent times

Click to view - Seán Mac Bride

Seán MacBride had an amazing life. Son of executed 1916 leader Major John MacBride and Maud Gonne, reared in Paris, on IRA active service in the Tan War, in the Four Courts garrison in the Civil War, Chief of Staff in the ’30s, barrister, founder of Clann na Poblachta, Minister for External Affairs and then an international career as a champion of human rights and peace, earning him both the Nobel and Lenin Peace Prizes.

This was a colourful journey by any standards yet this memoir is curiously monochrome. The pace and tone rarely change. Emotion is restrained. There is a reserve and a distance from people and events. At the same time, given the central role MacBride played, the book is fascinating as an insider’s view of turbulent times.

Returning to Ireland in the wake of his father’s execution in 1916, MacBride quickly joined the Irish Volunteers and was soon close to the leadership, going on arms-buying missions to the Continent. At the same time he was active with the IRA’s Dublin Brigade and one of the rare moments where he shows emotion is when he describes the ambush in the Pearse Street area in which his comrade Leo Fitzgerald was killed.

MacBride dates his commitment to legal justice to this time. Obviously the execution of comrades after sentence by British courts martial had a deep effect. But on another occasion he saved a man from almost certain execution by the IRA who had court-martialled him as a spy. MacBride was convinced that the man was innocent and he had him admitted to a mental hospital before the IRA court could sentence him.

Serving as a courier for the Irish delegation in London during the Treaty negotiations, MacBride criticises the heavy drinking that went on. He was against the Truce and the Treaty. He had friends on both sides when the split came. On the morning of 8 December 1922 MacBride’s cellmate Rory O’Connor was taken from their cell in Mountjoy and led out to his death. The anger and despair of the republican prisoners is conveyed here, as well as a heated confrontation between MacBride and a priest who was pleading to him to obey the bishops and recant his republicanism.

After the Civil War MacBride remained active with the IRA and became Chief of Staff briefly in the ’30s. He was a ‘caretaker’, as he says himself. He believed that the 1937 Constitution removed the need for armed struggle and thereafter he concentrated on legal work. His most famous day in court was the inquest of IRA hunger striker Seán McCaughey when he got the prison doctor to say that he would not treat his own dog the way McCaughey was treated.

It was mainly ex-IRA lawyers who set up Clann na Poblachta. Seldom has a party had such a shooting-star existence. Two by-election victories, eleven seats in its first General Election in 1948, straight into government and then out in 1951, followed by decline and dissolution. Much could be said about the Mother and Child scheme controversy which dominated that Inter-Party government. Neither MacBride nor Noel Browne, the Minister for Health who wanted to implement the scheme of free medical care for mothers and babies, distinguished themselves in that affair. MacBride supported the scheme but says Browne engineered confrontation with the Catholic bishops and could have got it through if he had handled it better. Browne accused MacBride of treachery.

The Mother and Child debacle was certainly the low point of MacBride’s career and he must bear a deal of responsibility for the fact that the despotism of the Catholic bishops and the elitism of the medical profession won the day.

MacBride says the purpose of Clann na Poblachta was “the bringing about of a change in government”. It rushed into government with parties whose only common purpose was getting Fianna Fáil out. It had no long-term strategy and little organisational base. It failed to dent the powerful forces in Irish society, including the Catholic Church, Fianna Fáil and the Orange state. MacBride’s efforts against partition as Minister for External Affairs have been deprecated by many historians but a re-assessment is surely needed. He tells here how Churchill repeated to him several times how he would not “let down” his “friends in Ireland” — the Unionist Party.

In his 1982 introduction to Bobby Sands’ One Day in My Life, MacBride made clear his undiminished opposition to British rule in Ireland. He says he did not participate in the H-Block/Armagh campaign lest this be misconstrued as support for armed struggle but he lobbied the British Government and spoke on the Hunger Strike at an Irish-American Unity conference meeting in New York in 1981. By then he was a world renowned figure, promoting human rights and disarmament. This latter part of his career is not covered by these memoirs.

For anyone interested in Irish politics since 1916 this is a fascinating book about an enigmatic man and his times.

BY MÍCHEÁL Mac DONNCHA

An Phoblacht

British army gave 400 names to death squads

BY LAURA FRIEL

The British government tried to suppress it. British sources briefed the media it was a “non story”. The PSNI refused to comment and the then British NIO Minister Ian Pearson insisted, “There were no indications the material had fallen into the hands of paramilitaries.”

Over a year after secret files containing the personal details of up to 400 republicans and nationalists were stolen from offices used by covert British army operatives at the PSNI Castlereagh complex, the PSNI have informed nationalists that their lives are in danger and their details are in the hands of unionist paramilitaries.

Sinn Féin confirmed on Wednesday afternoon last that party President Gerry Adams had been warned that his details were among those found in the hands of the death squads.

Commenting on this latest revelation Sinn Féin Belfast MLA Alex Maskey said: “Given the fact that the personal details of 400 people are believed to be contained in the Crown Forces dossier removed from Castlereagh and given to one of the loyalist gangs it will come as no surprise that more republicans are being visited this afternoon in addition to the 50 people spoken to last night.

“However what the visit to Gerry Adams’ home today does prove is that as recently as July of last year the British state was still spying on the Sinn Féin leaders at a time when we were trying to advance the peace process.

“The British have attempted to cover up this collusion scandal involving the RIR since last July. The time for evasion is over. They have endangered people’s lives for long enough. All those who have had their details passed to the loyalist gang must now be informed and the British must come clean on the extent of this operation.

Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness reacted angrily after the blatant cynicism of those involved in the cover up was exposed this week. “The British government, British ministers and the PSNI have allowed at least 400 people and their families to live under threat for over 16 months without informing them of the danger,” said McGuinness.

“The cynicism with which British officials decided to put people’s lives further at risk rather than expose the truth about wrongdoing within their ranks is totally unacceptable. This is very serious. British forces not only colluded by making information available to unionist paramilitaries, the British authorities have further colluded by trying to keep it a secret,” said McGuinness.

This week more than 50 republicans from were informed by the PSNI that their lives are in danger and their personal details had been found in the possession of unionist paramilitaries.

The PSNI have admitted the warnings are linked to documents originating from Castlereagh and discovered in the possession of unionist paramilitaries. They have also confirmed the documents are linked to a “security breach” in July 2004.

In July 2004 news of a security breach at the Castlereagh complex, which houses both Special Branch and British Military Intelligence, and the theft of documents fuelled media interest in what appeared to be another collusion scandal at the heart of the British occupation.

At the time the media claimed that the ‘missing’ documents amounted to “a British army bible of leading republicans across the north.” It also emerged that 28 British soldiers, members of the notorious RIR, had been removed to other duties. The RIR unit in question had been based in Castlereagh and involved in manning observation posts in nationalist areas of Belfast.

In 2004 the PSNI insisted the incident was not a “break-in” and did not involve PSNI security. The PSNI refused to comment when asked about missing documents and reportedly reassured British Ministers that information had not been passed to unionist paramilitaries.

Despite the fact that the UDA claimed to have the material in their possession, reassurances to the contrary were repeated to the media by a British army spokesperson.

The cynicism of those reassurances, designed to disguise British army collusion and no doubt spare the blushes of presiding British Ministers, only emerged this week after 50 nationalists were informed that their lives had been, and continued to be, endangered.

Alex Maskey confirmed that around 50 people in the Short Strand area had been visited by the PSNI and informed their details were in the hands of local unionist paramilitaries.

“The people visited were told that their dates of birth were part of the documentation-clearly indicating that the source of information as being some official or statutory body,” said Maskey.

“More than 50 people living in a small area have been told they could be under serious threat but I believe this document could contain the names and details of many more people in other areas of Belfast and throughout the north,” he continue.

Maskey said the situation was even more serious in light of the fact that the main unionist paramilitary organisations had so far ruled out giving up their weapons.

“This revelation, as well as recent unionist paramilitary violence, would indicate they still pose a serious threat both in relation to sectarian attacks and the loyalist feud,” he pointed out.

Speaking at a Belfast press conference Sinn Féin’s Gerry Kelly confirmed that he had met with British Minister Ian Pearson in 2004 and tabled a series of questions about the Castlereagh incident.

“I asked him a number of questions including how many documents were ‘missing’, the nature of the information, the role of the RIR and whether information had been passed to unionist paramilitaries. To each and every question Pearson replied, ‘no comment’,” said Kelly.

Martin McGuinness said Sinn Féin will raising the matter urgently with both the British and Irish governments. “This is a very serious situation. Fifty families have been informed that their lives are in danger; there are possibly 350 more yet to be informed. Even where families have been informed of the threat, the PSNI have offered no details as to its nature while offering no prospect of meaningful protection.”

Irelandclick.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

• He saw bomb fizz and bombers run away
• As a child was brought to Long Kesh in RUC attempt to make him ID innocent Catholic
• Received death threats
• Was never told woman witness also saw bombers

A key eyewitness who was just eight-years-old when a massive loyalist bomb ripped through McGurk’s bar has talked about his ordeal for the first time in decades.
The successful search for Joseph McClory is part of a drive by relatives of the December 1971 explosion to get to the truth about security force collusion into the bombing.
In an exclusive interview the New Lodge man tells how he was the victim of RUC and British army harassment and his evidence dismissed at the time.
In a dramatic twist the former paperboy was until now believed to have been the only person who saw the men plant the bomb at the North Queen Street bar.
But the North Belfast News can now reveal that another eyewitness – a woman – came forward at the time to tell the RUC she had also saw the bombers.
However Pat Irvine, whose mother Kathleen was killed in the no-warning slaughter that claimed the lives of 15 people including two children, claims this witness was “swept under the carpet”.
“I have an RUC memo that says a woman named Mary or Marie McGurk – nothing to do with the bar owners – came into the station to say she saw the men plant the bomb. She was listed as 28, a housewife and from Upper Meadow Street. How did her evidence never come to light when it could’ve corroborated young Joseph’s? We are appealing for that lady to come forward now so we can get to the truth about the collusion.”
Joseph McClory met Pat Irvine for the first time this week. In an emotional meeting, he revealed how he received loyalist death threats to his home that he believes came from the British army who had got access to his address from the RUC. He was also asked to identify a Catholic man from Carrickhill as one of the bombers.
The 42-year-old said a short time after the bombing he was brought with his parents to a court in Long Kesh where he was asked if a man in the dock was one of the bombers. But the little boy told the truth and said no.
A delegation of victims will travel to Dublin to meet the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, in December in a high-profile meeting in which the bombing will be discussed.
From the highest levels of the Stormont government at the time, misinformation was fed to the public with the bombing immediately blamed on IRA members making a bomb in McGurk’s. That, says the families, branded their loved ones as bombers also.
New Lodge man Joseph McClory, who is now a father-of-four, recalled the night of November 4 when he saw McGurk’s explode in front of his young eyes.
“I was delivering papers in and around three or four bars and was going into the last one before going home,” he said.
“I saw men standing in the hallway of McGurk’s and I looked to see what they were doing. I saw them get into what was an old fashioned looking car to me and it had a wee Union Jack sticker on the back.”
The child walked over to the package the men had placed at the bar door.
“I could see it was a bomb. It was just this lump with see-through plastic. I could see the fuse fizzing and I clicked on it was a bomb.
“I went round the corner into North Queen Street and saw a man I knew who was going in and I told him there was a bomb. I got 20 yards away across the street and it just blew up.”
Joseph McClory described the moment he saw the blast rip through the family bar where the McGurk children and their friends were in the upstairs living quarters. It was the biggest loss of life until the Omagh bomb.
“It fell right down to the ground. Only part of a wall was left and a statue of Our Lady where it had been upstairs. I ran home. The neighbour’s wife who I told about the bomb called at the door and I went down to tell the police what I saw. They just kept asking me were the men carrying guns. Then I went to the police station and gave a statement. Then I got threatening letters supposedly from loyalists saying to my parents if I was seen in the town selling papers again I would be killed.”
But a more sinister twist was to come for Joseph McClory when the RUC brought him to a court in Long Kesh.
“I remember going up with my parents. There was a judge and a court and I was swivelling on the chair and the judge told me ‘stop it’. They brought a man in and asked me was he one of the men I saw in the bombing. I said no. The man left Long Kesh free with me and my parents that day.”
Joseph McClory said the childhood horror at seeing the loyalist bombing in which one man later confessed to his part after being questioned about another murder, had affected his life.
“I was in and out of jail until I was 20, I don’t think I’ve ever got over it.”
Pat Irvine who is leading the hunt for all the testimonies of witnesses and victims in an effort to get to the truth appealed for the missing witness to come forward.
“It must have been so frightening for a boy so young whose evidence the RUC tried to distort.
“It brings out the whole truth about the collusion in the bombing of McGurk’s,” she said.

Journalist:: Staff Reporter

Belfast Telegraph

Hundreds of police interview cassettes dumped in Belfast

By Debra Douglas
18 November 2005

Calls were last night made for a full investigation into why hundreds of cassettes thought to be recordings of police interviews with defendants were dumped in a city centre bin.

More than 300 tapes and covers with the names of police officers and defendants were discovered in a large city centre bin by a security guard, prompting Ulster Unionist Jim Rodgers to call for an explanation.

“This is very alarming and deeply disturbing and I am calling for a full- scale investigation into this,” he said.

“All of us are conscious, even in these so-called days of peace, that security is of paramount importance and I want to know why such tapes were simply discarded in a bin.

“There needs to be an inquiry and I want to know the outcome of it.

“I’m sure other members of the public will also be asking the same questions about this.”

Speaking to the Belfast Telegraph, the guard, who asked not to be named, said: “There was about 300 tapes in the bin. I couldn’t believe it.

“There were RUC cassettes and PSNI ones that said the names of police officers and the name of a defendant.

“All of them had been cut, but it’s not something you expect to see, especially in a bin on a side street where there are a lot of druggies and alcos.”

After the discovery was reported to the police by the Belfast Telegraph, the tapes were removed.

A PSNI spokesman said the tapes had been given to a solicitor in the area.

He added: “The tapes were supplied by the PSNI to the solicitor as required by legislation to assist them in the defence of their clients.

“The care and disposal of these tapes are a matter for the solicitor.”

BBC

The DUP has called on Peter Hain to resign

The DUP has called on Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain to resign after he said the economy “is not sustainable in the long term”.

Mr Hain told the New York weekly newspaper, the Irish Echo, that “the island of Ireland should in future be marketed as a single entity”.

DUP assembly member George Dawson said Mr Hain should resign.

The row comes as the DUP is due to meet the Irish prime minister in Dublin on Friday.

Mr Dawson, who described Mr Hain’s comments as “disgraceful and insulting, inaccurate and unjustifiable,” added that his role was to build confidence in the Northern Ireland economy.

‘Unsustainable’

“Speaking in America, the secretary of state has done inestimable damage to the Nothern Ireland economy,” Mr Dawson said.

“And rather than the Northern Ireland economy being unsustainable, I rather think it is the secretary of state’s position which is unsustainable at the moment.”

A DUP delegation led by party leader Ian Paisley will hold talks with Bertie Ahern and Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern.

The DUP refused to take part in talks with the Irish and British governments on Monday, jointly hosted by Dermot Ahern and Mr Hain.

The party said it was not taking part as the talks seemed to be nothing more than stock-taking.

BreakingNews.ie

18/11/2005 - 07:16:28

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern will urge the Rev Ian Paisley today to enter government in Northern Ireland with Sinn Féin early next year.

Mr Paisley is heading a Democratic Unionist Party delegation in Dublin for the first formal talks with the Irish government since the IRA announced an end to its 36-year armed campaign in late July.

It is also the first face-to face contact between Mr Ahern and Mr Paisley since the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) confirmed in September that the IRA had completed arms decommissioning.

An Irish Government spokesman said of today’s talks: “The meeting with the DUP is the latest in a round of discussions between the Taoiseach and Northern Ireland political parties.

“The agenda will centre around the need to find consensus on Mr Ahern’s stated objective to commence Northern Ireland power-sharing talks in the spring.”

Mr Ahern hopes talks to restore the suspended Northern Ireland Assembly can begin if the IMC gives the IRA a clean bill of health in its next report in January.

However Mr Paisley, who was appointed to the Queen’s Privy Council last month, remains unconvinced that the IRA has severed all links with criminality.

In October 2004, Mr Paisley visited Dublin for the first political meeting with an Irish head of government.

Two months later, a power-sharing deal with Sinn Féin collapsed because the DUP insisted on visual evidence of IRA decommissioning.

BBC

Four people arrested in connection with the murder of Martin Conlon in Armagh have been released without charge.

Mr Conlon, 35, from Railway Street in the city, was found shot at Farnaloy Road outside Keady on 7 November.

Police are still questioning one man about the killing. Two men had been arrested in the Armagh area and a third detained in Dungannon on Thursday.

A woman and teenage boy were arrested on Wednesday. Police have said a homophobic motive is a line of inquiry.

They are also looking at whether Mr Conlon was killed by dissident republicans, with whom he was linked.

Mr Conlon was released recently from prison in the Republic of Ireland where he had served a four year sentence after being arrested at a Real IRA training camp.

Detectives returned to the scene of the shooting on Monday to stage a partial reconstruction in a bid to piece together the circumstances surrounding the murder and identify new witnesses.