Sorry seems to be the easiest word for SF
APOLOGIES come easy and often from Sinn Féin – four already in the first eight weeks of this year – the latest from their newlyelected TD for Kildare North after her racist, anti-Semitic rants. Now, I wonder, do we assume that her apology was sanctioned by those IRA bosses who, the Garda Commissioner believes, have the last word on what Sinn Féin says and does?
Réada Cronin’s statement said she ‘unreservedly and wholeheartedly’ apologises to the people offended by the ‘glib, off-the-cuff tweets that I sent in the past.’
It is hard to take Cronin – or her apology – seriously, particularly when her tweets were so facile about racial hatred and spontaneous on religious bigotry.
Sinn Féin disapproves of her tweets but thinks the complaints about them should have ended when Cronin withdrew her remarks and apologised.
But then Cronin’s recent blood libels on Jews are reflected in her leader Mary Lou McDonald’s shameless hero worship of a Nazi collaborator the year before she was elected an MEP.
Former IRA Chief of Staff Seán Russell went to Germany in 1940 at the invitation of Adolf Hitler, committing the IRA to armed struggle in direct collaboration with the Nazis.
Ms McDonald delivered a speech praising him beside a statue of Seán Russell in Fairview Park in Dublin in August 2003 – believed to be the only statue honouring an ally of Hitler in any European city.
Cronin’s hate tweets included the old lie that Hitler was a pawn for a bank owned by the Rothschild family – and the Kildare North TD targeted Jews and Israel in other propaganda.
The Jewish Representative Council of Ireland is disappointed that the Sinn Féin leader did not condemn her TD’s incendiary remarks. Chairman Maurice Cohen said the tweets were ‘inaccurate, anti-Semitic and racist’.
Asked for a comment on Mr Cohen’s statement, a Sinn Féin spokesman said that the tweets ‘do not represent the views of Sinn Féin’ and that Cronin had ‘apologised unreservedly for the remarks’.
Anti-Semitic slurs expose a side of Sinn Féin that they hide from supporters abroad – particularly from their generous donors in the United States.
The party’s other regrets recently also reinforce a suspicion that Sinn Féin’s self-styled patriotism is inspired more by hatred (of all things British) than love (for a socialist, separatist Ireland).
Serial apologies from Sinn Féin accelerated around the election earlier this month.
EARLIER this month the Sinn Féin finance minister in Northern Ireland seemed to be speaking out of both sides of his mouth apologising for criminalising Paul Quinn, 21, who was brutally murdered by the IRA in 2007. Paul’s parents, Breege and Stephen, still refuse to accept Conor Murphy’s apology. Murphy was convicted in 1982 of IRA membership and explosives charges.
Sinn Féin TD David Cullinane was filmed singing ‘Up the Ra’ after his re-election in Waterford. After a delay, the TD apologised.
In January, Sinn Féin Councillor Paddy Holohan suggested the Taoiseach’s Indian heritage and sexuality made him unsuitable to lead the country. The ex-MMA fighter believed the country should be led by a ‘family man’. Sinn Féin said he was sorry and Holohan apologised on cue.
Sinn Féin chalked up four apologies in the first 54 days of this year – so saying they are ‘sorry’ is not the hardest word for them. No other Irish party has had so many members celebrating violence and hate speech – or delivering so many apologies – even their leader.
Mary Lou McDonald apologised for parading behind an ‘England Get Out Of Ireland’ banner in the St Patrick’s Day parade in New York last year.
Last year she refused to apologise for saying that no serving officer was suitable for promotion to Chief Constable within the PSNI. But Mary Lou’s point of political principle disappeared two weeks ago when Michelle O’Neill and Gerry Kelly, her most senior colleagues in Northern Ireland, attended a PSNI recruitment drive.
The Jewish Council in Ireland and the Israeli embassy were offended by the Réada Cronin anti-Semitic slurs.
Last year the EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) warned about the global surge in anti-Semitism: ‘Decades after the Holocaust, shocking and mounting levels of antiSemitism continue to plague the EU,’ said the FRA director, Michael O’Flaherty.
The Chairman of the Jewish Representative Council in Ireland Maurice Cohen said Cronin’s comments were based on a lack of knowledge: ‘A little education on what constitutes anti-Semitism would go a long way to correcting this problem,’ he said.
Since the details of her tweets were made public, Cronin’s account was made private and now no one can discover how vile they were.
But the electorate of this country – any government they elect and the politicians they vote for – have to choose: Do they believe the Garda Commissioner and the Defence Forces about IRA bosses overseeing Sinn Féin – or do they accept the word of Mary Lou when asked if the IRA still exists, even as political organisation: ‘No it does not, so far as I am aware, no it does not.’