Names of murdered policemen burned on Londonderry bonfire
RELATIVES of murdered police and prison officers told of their disgust yesterday after the victims’ names were burned on a bonfire in Londonderry.
Poppy wreaths were also placed on the fire before it was lit in the Bogside area on Wednesday.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) described the bonfire as a hate crime.
The widow of Constable Stephen Carroll, who was shot dead in Craigavon, County Armagh, nine years ago, said she was ‘shocked and disappointed’.
Kate Carroll added: ‘Most people in this country would like to move on from the past.’ The name of prison officer David Black, 52, was also placed near the top of the bonfire.
Mr Black was shot driving to work in November 2012. His son Kyle tweeted: ‘My dad, along with other brave men named, served their community with dignity and respect.’
The bonfire was covered with English and British flags.
Politicians in Northern Ireland and the Republic condemned the spectacle.
Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney said he was ‘appalled and saddened by this hatred’. Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradley condemned the ‘sickening behaviour’. Martina Anderson, a Sinn Fein MEP, described the bonfire as ‘an antithesis of my republicanism’.
Bonfires on August 15 are traditional in some nationalist parts of Northern Ireland to mark the Roman Catholic Feast of the Assumption.
To others, they are lit to commemorate the introduction of internment without the trial for republican terror suspects which was introduced by London on August 9, 1971.
PSNI Chief Inspector Paul McCracken described the bonfire as ‘distasteful and offensive’.