DUP to rethink memorial for SAS
By Noel McAdam
Belfast Telegraph
25 February 2008
The DUP today indicated it will not proceed with an application for an official Stormont function to commemorate the SAS if a Sinn Fein commemoration of IRA bomber fails to go ahead.
The Assembly Commission is expected to discuss the Sinn Fein plans to include IRA bomber Mairead Farrell in an International Women’s Day celebration in the next few days.
Both ceremonies, if given permission, would take place in the Long Gallery at Stormont.
MP Jeffrey Donaldson today said: “We have not yet submitted our application and I will await the outcome of the Commission’s deliberations before proceeding with this proposal.”
He argued Sinn Fein, which has demanded the removal of British symbols elsewhere, was being deliberately provocative in planning the tribute to Farrell, who was shot dead by the SAS in Gibraltar in 1988 with fellow IRA members Sean Savage and Danny McCann.
He also said the SAS event would be only the first in a series to mark the service of the security forces in the province, while Farrell was not “something to be celebrated”.
In one of the most disputed killings of the Troubles, the later inquest in Gibraltar heard Farrell (37) was shot five times as the IRA unit attempted to bomb British soldiers. All three IRA members, however, were said to have been unarmed.
The deaths led to one of the most unsettled periods which included the killing attack on Milltown cemetery by Michael Stone and subsequent murders of Army corporals Derek Woods and David Howes.
Ms Farrell was also jailed between 1976 and 1986 after being arrested as a bomb was planted the bombing of the Conway Hotel in Dunmurry, outside Belfast.
Sinn Fein MLA Jennifer McCann, who is organising the event for March 8, said: “Stormont is a shared space and that’s the way it has to be seen.
“We have a right to hold the celebration there. I would never, ever say to unionists or loyalists that they should or should not be doing something.”
Mr Donaldson, who served with the former UDR, said: “I believe we should celebrate the lives of role models, but who in their right mind could view a terrorist who was prepared to kill innocent men, women and children as a role model?
” That is not the image we want to portray to our children as we build a peaceful and prosperous Northern Ireland. However, it is right and proper that we should celebrate and commemorate our armed forces who stood against terrorists such as Farrell.”
