The Lord Mayor of Cork has become embroiled in a war of words with the Royal British Legion over his failure to attend or send a deputy to the legion's Remembrance Day Commemoration in the city on Sunday afternoon.
Sinn Féin's Cllr Chris O'Leary said that he was unable to attend the wreath-laying ceremony at the Cenotaph on the city's South Mall due to a prior commitment to attend the FAI Cup Final in Dublin where Cork City FC were taking on Dundalk.
The Royal British Legion said it was “very disappointed that Cllr Chris O’Leary, the Sinn Féin Lord Mayor of Cork has refused to attend the Royal British Legion annual Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph on the South Mall”.
According to the chairman of the Cork branch of the Royal British Legion, David J Daly, all previous Lords Mayor of Cork have been delighted to attend and this was the first time that he could recall in over 40 years of attending that the Lord Mayor of Cork would not attend and lay a wreath.
“His (Mr O’Leary’s) attitude is all the more surprising following Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth’s visit to Cork four years ago. Her wonderful act of reconciliation two years later in receiving Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness at Windsor Castle was most notable,” he said.
"What a pity, he does not use this Remembrance Sunday as a further opportunity for reconciliation," said Mr Daly adding that the Irish government would be represented by Minister for Defence, Simon Coveney and other dignatories at the wreath-laying ceremony.
Mr O’Leary, the first Sinn Féin Lord Mayor of Cork in more than 90 years, rejected suggestions he had snubbed the Royal British Legion and pointed out he had explained the situation to the organisation when he held a meeting with its representatives on Thursday.
"It's not correct to say that I refused to attend - I explained when I met Pat Goggin from the Royal British Legion that I had not received the invite in time and had made a prior commitment to attend the FAI Cup Final to support Cork City, so I absolutely refute the accusation that I refused to attend."
“I made it absolutely clear that my inability to attend was not political and that as Lord Mayor of Cork, I am above politics and that it was simply a result of the sequence in which the invites had come into the Lord Mayor’s office,” he said.
Mr O’Leary said that he operated the mayoral diary on the basis of which invites came in first and Cork City FC had invited him to attend the FAI Cup Final some months back in the belief they would reach the final and he had given them a commitment that he would attend.
He pointed out that the Lord Mayor had been invited to four Remembrance Day events in Cork over the weekend and either he or his deputy, party colleague, Cllr Mick Nugent had attended or would attend three of the four to remember all those who had died in the Great War.
"I attended an event organised by the Western Front Association at the Cenotaph on Saturday which was inclusive and ecumenical and had representatives of all those countries who were involved in the Great War, not just the victors and it included former members of the British army, "he said.
Mr Nugent had deputised for him at a Western Front Association Event at St Fin Barre's Cathedral on Friday night and would deputise at another event at St Fin Barre's on Sunday afternoon but he was not available to deputise at the Royal British Legion ceremony at 1pm on Sunday .
He had also been criticised for failing to attend this year’s Béal na mBláth commemoration and Cork’s appearance in the All-Ireland Ladies Football Final but the only way to operate the mayoral diary was to give priority to those first in contact as he could not assume other invites would come in later.
And he strongly rejected suggestions he had spurned an opportunity to promote reconciliation, pointing out he was visiting Coventry this week to commemorate the bombing of the city in the Blitz while he was also due to meet the Duke of Kent at a function in London later in the week.
