Sinn Fein has refused to attend a garden party tomorrow at which the Prince of Wales, who begins a two-day visit to the North today, will be the guest of honour.
All the North's Westminster MPs and ministers in the Stormont government have been invited, including the two Sinn Fein MPs, Mr Gerry Adams and Mr Martin McGuinness, and party colleague Ms Bairbre de Brun, Minister of Health.
Around 2,500 are expected to attend the party in Hillsborough Castle, which is being held to honour victims of the Northern conflict. Prince Charles's uncle, Lord Mountbatten, died when the IRA blew up his boat in Mullaghmore, Co Sligo, in 1979.
Those invited include groups representing victims of violence by the security forces as well as victims of loyalist and republican paramilitaries.
A Sinn Fein spokesman said the decision to boycott the event was taken because the Prince of Wales is colonel-in-chief of the Parachute Regiment, which killed 14 unarmed civilians on Bloody Sunday in Derry in 1972.
Meanwhile, a proposed visit today by Prince Charles to the University of Ulster's Magee campus in Derry has been cancelled due to concerns about upsetting nationalist sensitivities while the Saville Inquiry into Bloody Sunday is sitting in the city.