Shame on you Mary Lou for honouring a Nazi collaborator

national | politics / elections | opinion/analysis Tuesday June 08, 2004 00:29 by Interested Party

Is Mary Lou McDonald Proud to Share a Platform with an IRA bomber to honour Nazi Collaborator and IRA Chief of Staff ?

Eoin Ryan TD Asks the Question.

Less than 9 months ago Sinn Féin’s European Election Candidate in Dublin Mary Lou McDonald stood shoulder to shoulder with Brian Keenan, a convicted IRA bomber, to ‘pay respect’ (as described by An Phoblacht) to Nazi collaborator and former IRA Chief of Staff, Séan Russell.

Both McDonald and Keenan delivered passionate speeches at the foot of Russell’s statue in Fairview Park at a ceremony to honour his memory just last August.

Does Mary Lou have no shame? asks Fianna Fáil's European Election Candidate in Dublin Deputy Eoin Ryan TD.

Keenan was the leader of the notorious Balcombe Street Gang and has been linked to one of the Trouble’s most vicious atrocities – the slaughter of 10 Protestant workmen at Kingsmills in South Armagh. He is also reported to have masterminded a coach bombing in which 12 people lost their lives on an English motorway . He is a very senior figure in the IRA.

Less than two months ago Keenan showed at an Easter 1916 rally in Monaghan, that he hasn't been mollified by the peace process. “If the British army and the police and all their death squads, can arm, train, reinforce and bring in electronic devices, more troops, more helicopters and more guns, well, they shouldn’t be surprised if the IRA won’t go away, and long may it continue,” he told the gathering.

The people of Dublin and Ireland should know the kind of company Mary Lou McDonald keeps.

And what of the person McDonald and Keenan gathered together to ‘pay respect’ to, Séan Russell – a self proclaimed ally of Hitler, Nazi Germany and former leader of the IRA.

McDonald thinks nothing of speaking at commemorations to honour a Nazi collaborator and his contemptible memory. Mary Lou McDonald please explain to the people of Dublin, Ireland and Europe why you stood shoulder to shoulder with a brutal IRA bomber less than nine months ago to honour a friend of the Holocaust.

Shame on you Mary Lou and your warped principles.

Séan Russell voluntarily went to Berlin at the invitation of Adolf Hitler and enterd into an alliance with him as the Holocaust was getting under way, yet Mary Lou McDonald, a European Election candidate is not at all embarrassed to claim him as part of her heritage.

As Europe gathers this weekend, on Normandy’s D-Day beaches, to honour the memory of those heroic men and women who sacrificed their lives in World War II to liberate Europe and defeat the horror of Nazism, I ask Mary Lou to let the people of Dublin know what she stands for.

The EU grew out of a determination that Europe would never again experience the tyranny of a dictator like Hitler. You say you want to be a MEP, yet nine months ago you celeberated the memory of a Nazi collaborator. Russell, like others who freely aided the Nazis, are reviled today across Europe, and rightly so.

It is also to the enduring shame of our City that we continue to allow this statue of Séan Russell to remain standing. In democratic Europe, Dublin remains the only city that still contains a statue honouring an ally of Hitler. Dublin City Council must act immediately and free our city of the EU’s last remaining monument to a servant of the Third Reich.

Mary Lou McDonald, I challenge you to explain how you can represent Dubliners' interests in Europe while you honour an ally of Adolf Hitler.

You are asking the people of Dublin to send you to Europe - I believe they deserve an explanation, concluded Eoin Ryan TD.