McDonnell’s office tribute to IRA men
JOHN McDonnell has a plaque in his office paying tribute to IRA prisoners who died on hunger strike, it emerged yesterday.
The Shadow Chancellor faced a furious backlash over the memorial to ten terrorists, including bomber Bobby Sands and murderer Francis Hughes.
It lists the so-called ‘H-Block Martyrs’, who died on a hunger strike in the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland at the height of the Troubles in 1981.
It was presented to Mr McDonnell in 2004 by former IRA terrorist Gerry Kelly.
Last night former Cabinet minister Lord Tebbit, whose wife was permanently paralysed in the 1984 Brighton bomb, said Mr McDonnell had been ‘caught out again’. He added: ‘It only confirms the closeness of IRA killers with some parts of the Labour Party.