Paramilitary show at Brady funeral

Shots were fired over the coffin of a dissident republican who died while in police custody in Derry at the beginning of this…

Shots were fired over the coffin of a dissident republican who died while in police custody in Derry at the beginning of this month.

Four men wearing balaclavas and paramilitary uniform appeared beside the coffin of John Brady outside his sister’s home in Strabane, Co Tyrone, and fired a volley of shots in the air.

Mr Brady was found dead in a police cell last Saturday after being arrested over a domestic dispute while on weekend parole from prison - it was said he could not face the prospect of returning to jail.

Between 300 and 400 people gathered outside the house for what was a full scale paramilitary funeral with all the traditional trappings.

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The coffin was draped in the tricolour and topped with a black beret and gloves and a guard of honour of some 50 men in white shirts and black ties and trousers lined the route from the house.

On the evening before the funeral four dissident republicans, uniformed and with faces covered by balaclavas, stood guard beside the open coffin inside the house.

There were no police in evidence in the vicinity of the paramilitary display but a police helicopter hovered a short distance away.

Following the funeral service at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Strabane, Mr  Brady was due to be buried at Doneyloop cemetery in Co Donegal where his father is interred.