SINN FEIN members provided a guard of honour at the funeral, yesterday of Mr Jack O'Callaghan, father of the former IRA murderer turned Garda informer, Mr Sean O'Callaghan, who yesterday began a three week speaking tour of the United States.
A graveside oration was given by Mr Martin Ferris, a member of the Sinn Fein delegation to the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation. He said Mr O'Callaghan, along with comrades, had "kept the republican flag alive in Kerry" and "stood against the acceptance of British rule in Ireland".
In an apparent reference to recent publicity generated by Mr O'Callaghan's son, Mr Ferris said in the last few months of his life Mr O'Callaghan senior had endured enormous "pain, mental and emotional". Following Requiem Mass in the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Tralee, the funeral took place to Rath Cemetery. Mr O'Callaghan was a well known republican activist in the area and had been interned in the 1940s.