RIRA vows it will step up campaign
Actions this year will be ‘louder than a thousand words’
The Real IRA has vowed to intensify its armed campaign in the year ahead, announcing that its actions will be “louder than one thousand words.”
The announcement was made by a masked member of the organisation dressed in full paramilitary clothing at an Easter Rising commemoration organised by the 32 County Sovereignty Movement (32CSM) at Derry’s City Cemetery yesterday afternoon.
Around 300 people gathered in the cemetery for the event. There was also a considerable media presence.
The Real IRA man was part of a colour party which paraded from the cemetery gates at Bligh’s Gardens to the republican monument for the commemoration.
Announcing the group’s plans for the next 12 months, the masked man said: “Our actions this year will be louder than one thousand words.”
The masked colour party disappeared into the crowd at the end of the commemoration.
A short time later, a group of young people gathered close to the cemetery and attempted to set up a barricade at the roundabout close to St Mary’s Church by burning rubbish on the road.
At least one petrol bomb was thrown.
The Real IRA warning comes just two weeks after the group said it planted four bombs in a number of locations in Derry’s city centre which led to traffic chaos. Similar bomb alerts occurred across the North at the same time.
The Real IRA has also claimed responsibility for attacks on a number of PSNI stations in recent months.
Marion Price, national secretary of the 32CSM, delivered the main oration at the commemoration and called for republicans to “take action” in their local communities.
“Our intellectual opposition to the current structures must be matched with action on the ground to leave people in no doubt that 1916 is unfinished business,” she said. “We need to act now; we cannot wait any longer.”
Ms Price also attacked Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness in her speech. “Quislings denouncing us as traitors is a familiar chorus. Republicanism cannot be led by quislings,” she said.
Belfast republican Terry McCafferty, who was recently released from prison, was among those at yesterday’s commemoration.
