Sinn Féin brought 2,500 people together in Dublin on Saturday evening for a dinner to honour republican dead and their families. Mark Hennessy reports
ON Saturday evening, 2,500 people gathered at the Citywest Hotel - the hotel, conference and golf complex on the outskirts of Dublin where both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael held their ardfheiseanna this year - to honour the IRA's dead in a US-style tribute dinner.
On the stage, a backdrop, modelled on the Washington memorial remembering Vietnam, listed the names of the fallen.
Nearly two years in the preparation, "Tirghra", or "Love of Country", the event was hosted by the US-based actress, Fionnuala Flanagan, a frequent attender of Sinn Féin fundraisers in the United States. Those invited included the families of Sean Savage, Mairéad Farrell and Daniel McCann, who were shot dead by the SAS in Gibraltar in 1988, and relatives of the eight IRA men killed by the SAS as they prepared to attack Loughgall RUC station in Co Armagh in 1987.
Stretching back to, in Sinn Féin's words, the "lean periods" of the 1930s-60s, relatives of Limerickman Seán South, who was killed during an attack on a RUC station in the 1956 Border campaign, were also honoured.
Each family received a sculpture by artist Robert Ballagh of a bronze Easter lily, set in granite, while a 15-minute video captured images from the Troubles.
Careful in their stage management, Sinn Féin ensured that the dinner and presentations were held away from prying eyes, leaving television cameras in again only to record the Sinn Féin president, Mr Gerry Adams's speech.
Family members politely declined journalists' requests for interviews, referring queries to their "minders".
Sinn Féin staff ensured that those who did speak were related to lesser-known IRA volunteers.
Even though 2,500 had gathered, thousands more wanted to come, said Mr Adams. "Why is that so? It is because we are proud of you. And of your men and women, your boys and girls."
The event had attracted little attention in advance in the Republic. Few had believed that Sinn Féin would wrap the mantle of the IRA around itself so openly so close to a general election.
Once it had begun, however, other questions were raised. Did it mean that the republican movement was publicly declaring that the "war is over"?
Was it being done to shore up support among the grassroots? Or was it simply triumphalism?
Bitterly critical, the Ulster Unionist Lagan Valley Democratic Unionist MP, Mr Jeffrey Donaldson, commented: "I think this feast of IRA members celebrating their so-called comrades, who were involved in some of the most terrible atrocities that occurred in the last 30 years, is really an insult to their victims.
"It rubs salt into the wounds of their loss and suffering. For the IRA to glorify the pain that they caused in the last 30 years is totally unacceptable.
"As they dine out on their stories of terrorist deeds it will just add to the pain of their victims."
Mr Adams said in his speech: "All of the people here have suffered. But all of us are mindful that no one has a monopoly on suffering or of the pain and emptiness that comes with bereavement.
"Republicans freely acknowledge the grief of all those - enemies as well as friends - who have lost loved ones in the conflict.
"Republicans are also very mindful of the plight of the families of the civilian dead, whose grief, bewilderment and sense of loss is undoubtedly different from any other section.
"Part of our endeavour at this time is to reach out to make peace with those we have hurt and with those who have hurt us," said Mr Adams, in a speech delivered five hours after the dinner began.
Asking if the conflict had been worth all the deaths, he said: "It is you the families, you who were left to rear orphans, you who were robbed of a partner who can legitimately put those questions. But you can also answer them.
"Because you knew your brothers and sisters, your sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, your spouses.
"You know their dreams and frailties, their flaws and their strengths.
"You know what motivated them," he declared.
Speaking to the media before the dinner began, Mr Paul Kavanagh, whose 18-year old brother, Albert, was shot dead by the RUC in 1972 during an attempted bomb attack on a Belfast factory, spoke for the relatives.
"From the families' standpoint it is important that they, the relatives, are seen as equal victims. This is a tribute to the fallen dead, but to the families as well," he told journalists.