Following years of sometimes tasteless rhetoric, the DUP's response to pope's death is significant
Sam McBride, Belfast Telegraph, April 22nd, 2025
The death of Pope Francis is a moment of profound sadness for more than a billion Catholics, a point at which the world's biggest church might again change direction — and in Northern Ireland, a test of how far unionism has shifted.
Since before the foundation of Northern Ireland, politics and religion have been entwined. It was on the basis of religious belief — because at that point it was an almost perfect marker of political persuasion — that the boundaries of Northern Ireland were drawn as they are today.
Yet, while religion is still the single best indicator of whether someone is a unionist or a nationalist, at no point since partition have the terms Catholic and Protestant been less accurate as markers of an individual's political preference.
This has been a challenge for political parties founded in ages of confessional simplicity. The greatest challenge has been for unionist parties, and for the biggest party in unionism, the DUP.
Last week, Sinn Fein's Declan Kearney attended a service in a Free Presbyterian Church. This was unusual, and he was only there because the service — tied to the history of the Irish language in Irish Presbyterianism — was itself highly unusual.
Yet within Sinn Fein there was no condemnation of Kearney attending a church founded by the Rev Ian Paisley.
Within unionism, this is complicated in part by theological differences. For those who take their reformed faith seriously, they believe that the Catholic Church is so fundamentally at variance with their understanding of Biblical teaching that they cannot associate with it and must protest against it — just as Luther did, and as the word Protestant implies.
People such as DUP founding member Wallace Thompson make this point starkly. Thompson could not be described as a sectarian bigot.
More susceptible to unity than tribal hatred
Again and again, he has reached out to express his openness to Irish unity and to criticise sectarianism within elements of unionism. He is now publicly open to Irish unity, inviting harsh criticism from many sections of unionism.
So great was his abhorrence at hearing the singing of the sectarian words “up to our necks in fenian blood” at an Orange Order parade several years ago that he hasn't paraded since.
Yet Thompson believes that the pope is the Antichrist and would not attend a service in a Catholic Church. This is a sincere religious belief rather than a pretext for mistreating his neighbours.
However, there are plenty of unionists — typified by those who sang those grotesque words which so moved Thompson — who aren't remotely religious. Their hatred for Catholics is tribal and has nothing to do with disagreements about transubstantiation. Indeed, many of these people probably couldn't articulate the theological disputes which differentiate Catholic and Protestant churches.
Historically, the DUP has been alive to the electoral potential of not only those who have religious differences with the Catholic Church, but also to those whose hatred is atavistic.
For years, the death of a pope was mostly met with indifference among northern unionists. When Pope Benedict XV died in 1922, the unionist Belfast News Letter published a straightforward report. It was, understandably, more preoccupied with British troops leaving Dublin, the implications of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, and widespread disorder. Likewise, when Pope Pius XI died in 1939, coverage was staid; as war loomed, this was a piece of comparatively straightforward international news.
Backlash
It was, paradoxically, as unionism began to tentatively liberalise that opposition intensified. On Pope Pius XII's death in 1958, Cookstown Rural Council held a minute's silence, even though “the majority of the members of the council belonged to other religious faiths” and the city flag was flown at half-mast on Londonderry's Guildhall.
By 1963, sombre coverage of Pope John XXIII's impending demise led the News Letter for three consecutive days. But a decision by Belfast's unionist lord mayor to fly the flag at half-mast as a mark of respect was countered by a 1,000-strong Ian Paisley-led march to protest “the lying eulogies now being paid to the Roman Antichrist”.
Paisley's anti-pope crusade reached its zenith in 1988 when John Paul II addressed the European Parliament. The DUP leader was carried out while shouting that the pontiff was the Antichrist.
Nine years earlier, that pope had come to Ireland, making one of the most impassioned pleas against the slaughter of the Troubles. While Paisley was alarmed that the pope might cross the border, it was actually the IRA which scuppered that plan. IRA attacks in Mullaghmore and Narrow Water convinced the Vatican to stay south.
In Drogheda, the pope prayed that no one “may ever call murder by any other name than murder” and famously added: “On my knees, I beg you to turn away from the paths of violence and to return to the ways of peace.”
Paisley's response was that the pope's words had “given fuel to the IRA and their violence.” This was a perverse interpretation of a ferociously anti-paramilitary speech. DUP deputy leader Peter Robinson said the BBC's extensive coverage was “disgraceful”.
In 2014, Robinson — by then first minister — told me he had “no need or desire” to meet the pope. After criticism, he then settled on a Jesuitical distinction: he'd meet him as Vatican head of state.
Weakened unionism sought refuge in inflexibility
In November 2016, while at the height of her powers just days from the cash for ash scandal, Robinson's successor, Arlene Foster, said that if the pope visited NI she would meet him. Two years later, and by then politically far weaker, Foster “regretfully” turned down an invitation to the pope's Dublin address due to a diary clash.
SDLP MP Gerry Fitt claimed in 1979 that Paisley's anti-pope language was “driving people into the arms of the IRA”. That might have been an exaggeration, but it certainly wasn't driving Catholics into the arms of the Union.
Whatever the doctrinal issues, this was always politically insane. Now, with Protestants a minority in Northern Ireland, the contorted position of the DUP is a problem for unionists. On the one hand, the DUP tells Catholics they're better off in the Union. On the other hand, the party has never repudiated a long history of ferociously anti-Catholic rhetoric.
Members of the DUP are as free to hold their religious views as popes, rabbis or imams. Tolerance and a commitment to free speech means being able to hear someone denounce the leader of your faith as Satanic. But if those religious views are adopted as de facto party policy, they're hardly terribly persuasive to adherents of that faith. To this day, there are DUP figures who think they can be gratuitously offensive to Catholics while still counting on their votes in a border poll.
The DUP of 2025 is not that of 1979. As nationalist parties reject Catholic teaching, some conservative Catholics now vote for the DUP. Recently, veteran DUP MP and Orangeman Jim Shannon was hailed by traditionalist Catholics after he pressed the Government about its attitude to the Latin Mass, then frowned upon by Pope Francis.
Not all of Paisley's fears about the Catholic Church were unsubstantiated. Research by the historian Martin Doherty has shown that in May 1978, a British official described Gaetano Alibrandi, the Papal Nuncio to Dublin, as a “card-carrying member of PIRA.”
An Irish diplomat said he was an “out and out Provisional”. Another distinguished Irish diplomat, Sean Donlon, said Alibrandi gave sanctuary in his nunciature to on-the-run IRA members. We now know there were widespread cover-ups of child abuse in this era.
Challenges of complexity
But Paisley failed to comprehend the complexity of the Catholic Church. There were more senior Vatican figures who loathed Alibrandi's actions and sought to nullify his influence.
Increasingly, the DUP has found itself on the same side as the Catholic Church in debates around issues like abortion.
When Pope Francis' death was announced this morning, one of the first local responses came from DUP leader Gavin Robinson.
In a dignified statement, he said: “Pope Francis was held in deep affection by many in Northern Ireland. We extend our respectful sympathies to all those grieving his passing.
“While many within the unionist community may hold different theological views, it is important to recognise the profound respect and admiration that many of our fellow countrymen and women had for the humble caretaker who entered the priesthood and died as the head of the Roman Catholic church.
“At this moment, we acknowledge their sorrow and offer our sincere condolences.”
his is evidence of how the DUP has shifted, and is in line with Robinson's own politics rather than merely a statement crafted for reasons of public relations.
But while the carefully scripted words of the leader are significant, the broader response of party representatives over the coming days will also be telling.
Performative republicanism with a dose of menace surely on its last legs?
Allison Morris, Belfast Telegraph, April 22nd, 2025
RIOTING AT DERRY PARADE NEGOTIATING TACTIC AMID NEW IRA CEASEFIRE TALKS
It wasn't a matter of if, but when the annual Easter Monday parade in Derry organised by the New IRA's political wing Saoradh would descend into violence.
It is a magnet for young people to gather and attack the PSNI, such has been the way since the event was first staged, with just one brief interlude when organisers moved it to Belfast following the murder of Lyra McKee in 2019.
Last year police adopted different tactics, pulling their Land Rovers out as soon as the march finished, using drones to gather intelligence instead.
This was successful in stopping attacks on officers.
Unfortunately, some of those gathered, who didn't wish to waste their petrol bombs, turned their ire on the media.
Photographers were attacked and a car torched.
This year it was the journalists who considered using drones rather than risk the wrath of a restless minority determined to riot regardless.
In the New IRA Easter statement they said they were “active, resolute and unyielding”. Only two of those things are true.
Ceasefire talks
They are not active, and are heavily monitored and infiltrated by the intelligence agencies.
And, despite denying it on social media, they are currently in ceasefire talks with the Irish Government.
There were lower numbers at this year's parade, which took a slightly different and longer route than normal.
The weather might have contributed to the turnout, along with the death of Pope Francis, which had many spending Easter Monday at home glued to the TV.
But there will always be those who show up to spectate the macabre pageantry of men and women in masks marching in formation through the streets of the city — performative republicanism that almost qualifies as a tourist attraction at this stage.
The organisers used the name National Republican Commemoration Committee to apply for permission to march this year.
A Venn diagram showing the membership of the NRCC alongside the membership of Saoradh would be one complete circle.
This was the first time the parade would not be considered an illegal procession, albeit restrictions on paramilitary-style dress were ignored.
Local community representatives have been working behind the scenes to minimise the annual disruption.
They, along with politicians and youth workers, want to prevent young people receiving criminal records that will impact the rest of their lives.
But with masked youths assembling even before the bands had gathered, there was always going to be trouble.
Build it and they will come: organise a parade involving 50 masked marchers and a band from Glasgow and expect rioters to follow the caravan.
Moving the final destination from the cemetery was a smart move by the organisers. In previous years they had lost support for what was seen as a desecration of republican graves by storing petrol bombs behind headstones.
This annual march now seems like it's in its death throes, given what is known about the behind-the-scenes discussions.
It wasn't always thus. The New IRA is the much pared down cousin of the Real IRA, which merged with other dissidents to form the group in 2012.
They traditionally held their Easter commemoration in Derry's City Cemetery, and the promise of masked and armed men brought out thousands of spectators.
On one occasion it landed veteran republican Marian Price back in prison after she held a statement for a masked gunman as he issued threats against Catholic police officers.
This weekend there have been Easter Rising parades all across Ireland. All but one pass off without headlines.
The New IRA could stop young people rioting in the same way other republican groups in Belfast used their influence to put an end to annual internment bonfires and the trouble they brought.
But they don't, because in the past it has helped them gather recruits.
It is now leverage in the ongoing backchannel discussions. To be able to turn violence off and on is a useful tactic in any negotiation of this nature.
And once again questions will turn to the PSNI's handling of the parade, and whether or not it adopted the right tactics in dealing with the parade and its associated rioting.
Republic can be achieved, 1916 commemoration told
Connla Young, Irish News, April 22nd, 2025
A REPUBLIC can be achieved, those attending an Easter Rising commemoration in Co Tyrone have been told.
Hundreds of people and several bands took part in the annual parade, organised by the Tyrone National Graves Association (TNGA), as it made its way through Carrickmore on Monday.
The TNGA is an independent body that tends to the graves of deceased republicans across the county.
A short commemoration was later held at a garden of remembrance.
Séana Quinn, whose brother Dwayne O’Donnell was one of three IRA members killed along with a civilian during a loyalist attack in Cappagh in 1991, read the 1916 Proclamation to those attending.
Caoimhe Ní Loingsigh, whose uncles Seán and Pádraig McKearney, both IRA members, who were also killed during the Troubles, read the Co Tyrone roll of honour.
During his address Eamonn Hanna, chair of Tyrone National Graves Association, quoted former Belfast republican Brendan ‘The Dark’ Hughes who questioned the “wisdom of administering British rule in this part of Ireland”.
“Some who have stood here throughout the generations would advocate this while talking of the sacrifice of our patriot dead,” he said.
“Using that sacrifice to justify acknowledging the very crown and empire the sacrifice was made to defeat.
“We stand here in defiance of that crown and empire that has tried to wipe our nation from the face of the earth and that has enchanted and bought the hearts of too many in our country.”
All Ireland republic achievable
He said an all-Ireland republic is obtainable.
“Our republic can be achieved. It can be a reality,” he said.
“A republic of the people, for the people. We must have the confidence to proclaim this loud and clear.”
Mr Hanna said republicans must seek the “immediate reunification of Ireland”.
“Democracy in Ireland has been denied by Britain who continue to impose a border in Ireland by partitioning the country through the threat of violence and subjecting six counties of Ireland to ongoing British rule,” he said.
Thousands turn out for Apprentice Boys of Derry procession
Belfast Telegraph, April 22nd, 2025
More than 50 bands joined the main Apprentice Boys of Derry parade on Easter Monday, as supporters lined the streets to watch the annual procession.
It marked the first official day of the 2025 marching season and commemorated the start of Londonderry city's siege.
The parade made its way through the centre of Lisburn this year, starting from Wallace Park at 12.30pm.
Bands, which came from as far away as Fermanagh, Ballymena, Armagh city and Newtownstewart, headed south and performed a tour of the city centre, ending at Altona Road.
There were 6,000 participants listed, with the organiser being the Apprentice Boys of Derry, Belfast and District Amalgamated Committee.
David Hoey, general secretary of the Apprentice Boys, described the annual Easter tradition as “just a good, solid, joyous day”, while governor William Walker declared the turnout “magnificent”.
Thousands of people across NI have taken part in parades held in recent days, from both unionist and nationalist organisations and communities.
UDA finally banned in 1992 after London admitted its policy unjustifiable
Sam McBride, Belfast Telegraph, April 22nd, 2025
THE LONG-OVERDUE OUTLAWING OF TERROR GANG CAME ABOUT AS GOVERNMENT ACCEPTED BASIS FOR LEGALITY 'SPURIOUS'
After hundreds of murders by the UDA, the government finally banned the terror group in 1992, with the Secretary of State telling the Prime Minister what had been known for decades — that the basis for keeping it legal was “spurious”.
London had repeatedly refused to outlaw it, hiding behind the claim murders committed by its members were in fact not UDA killings, but the work of the UFF, a front group used to try to maintain a fiction which no one believed.
Files now declassified at The National Archives in Kew show internally the government knew its position was ludicrously indefensible.
In July 1992 Secretary of State Sir Patrick Mayhew wrote to Prime Minister John Major to set out the case for proscribing the UDA.
Describing it as “the main loyalist organisation concerned in terrorism in Northern Ireland”, he said: “I now believe the time for proscription has come.”
By this stage the UDA had been responsible for hundreds of murders. This was no secret, and other government files show that ministers and officials were well aware of the nature of the terror gang, something we now know was due to a huge number of informers at almost all levels of the UDA.
Mayhew said the main impact of banning the UDA would be to make it a criminal offence to raise funds for the organisation, and he suggested it would have little other practical benefit.
Dramatic Fall in UDA membership
He said at its peak in 1972 it had about 40,000 members, but by the early 1990s that had fallen to between 1,000-2,000.
The Secretary of State said: “There is now overwhelming evidence that the UDA is primarily engaged in terrorist violence against nationalists and he minority community at large… the alleged distinction between the already proscribed UFF and the UDA is clearly spurious.
“The UFF is nothing more than a cover name for members of the UDA who carry out murders, in pursuance of UDA policy, of such persons as the five in the betting shop in the Ormeau Road in February, and more recently of Mrs Philomena Hanna and Mr Cyril Murray in West and East Belfast respectively.”
He added: “The truth is that the UDA now scarcely bother to maintain the fiction of being separate from the UFF.
“There are undoubtedly members of the UDA not involved in terrorism, but the intelligence indicates that those concerned with the planning and execution of terrorist acts are at the top of the organisation and use it for that purpose.
“In particular the two most influential members of the ruling Inner Council (and possibly others) are actively involved, and terrorist attacks are frequently discussed at Council meetings.
“The character of the UDA as described above is well known in the Province and beyond. There is no ground of principle which can justify not proscribing it.”
He said the continued existence of the UDA as a legal organisation was “dangerous” to the government, especially in the Republic and the US, and would “cause us ongoing damage”.
Mayhew said the two main unionist parties were unlikely to argue against proscription, but would ask for Sinn Féin to be treated likewise.
“Presentationally this is the issue which will be the most awkward. Sinn Féin declines to denounce violence and I do not wish to have to argue that the Sinn Féin leaders are not such bad chaps when you get to know them,” he said
Structural differences
“The relationship of the UDA to the UFF is, however, very different from that of Sinn Féin to PIRA.
“There is in practice no organisational distinction between the leadership of the UDA and the UFF.
“But Sinn Féin and the Provisional Army Council are two distinct structures, albeit with some overlap in membership.
“The main argument against proscribing Sinn Féin is, however, a political one.
“Sinn Féin, unlike the UDA, is a political party and one which attracts around 10% of the popular vote… proscription of Sinn Féin would not be practicable.”
The Prime Minister, Home Secretary, Defence Secretary and Solicitor General all agreed with the decision, which was implemented in mid-August.
A written series of questions and answers, prepared to help ministers defend the decision publicly, contained the question: “How will known UDA members be able to avoid prosecution?”
The answer given was: “By their conduct from now on and by ceasing to be members of the organisation.”
Yet, to this day, the leaders of the UDA are widely known, so much so that they are regularly named in public and have appeared at events alongside PSNI commanders — but are not arrested and charged with membership of what remains an illegal terrorist organisation.
'State policy of torture covered up' - says man cleared of Sallins train robbery
Osgur Breatnach says confession was result of torture by garda 'Heavy Gang'
Conor Feehan, Irish Independent, April 22nd, 2025
OSGUR BREATHNACH SAYS HIS CONFESSION WAS RESULT OF ‘HEAVY GANG’ TORTURE
A man wrongly convicted of a role in the 1976 Sallins train robbery has said the Government is not holding a public independent inquiry into the investigation because it would lift the lid on what he says was a state policy of using torture to secure false confessions from innocent people.
Osgur Breatnach said a group within the gardaí at the time, widely known as The Heavy Gang, beat and tortured a confession from him to silence a political group he was involved in, and a "policy of torture” had been covered up since.
The story began in Dublin on the night of March 30, 1976, when a deli worker was set upon by a gang who stole his van as he was finishing work in Clondalkin.
An hour-and-a-half later, four men arrived in the van at a farmhouse in Co Kildare beside the railway line between Sallins and Hazelhatch.
They woke up the owners and told them they were members of the Garda Special Branch. They held the homeowners at gunpoint.
Members of the gang could be heard moving material from the van towards the railway line, and in the early hours of the morning, as the mail train travelling from Cork approached, the gang detonated charges to blow up the line and force the train to stop.
On board was over IR£200,000 worth of banknotes, postal orders, and other valuables - worth well in excess of €1m in today's money.
One of most lucrative heists of Troubles
The Sallins train robbery was one of the most daring and lucrative heists in the history of the Irish State.
And for Mr Breatnach, a journalist and activist, it was the beginning of an ordeal that haunts him to this day. He was arrested that morning, as one of six accused of carrying out the robbery.
Mr Breatnach was 25 at the time, and the editor of the socialist newspaper The Starry Plough, and a member of the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP).
At the time, the IRSP and other left-wing political groups were viewed with suspicion by the government and An Garda Síochána.
At the same time, the IRA was carrying out bank robberies and kidnappings to fund its activities in the North.
It is Mr Breatnach's contention that there was no actual investigation into the train robbery itself, and that gardaí had decided it was the IRSP that they wanted to blame.
In a new two-part podcast on The Indo Daily, he outlines his story of being tortured by gardaí and having a confession beaten out of him.
"There was no evidence, and as far as I'm concerned, from my knowledge of the case and of books that have been written about it, and having spoken to people and so forth, there was never an investigation,” he says.
The podcast was told how Mr Breatnach was arrested and released without charge, but then taken in again by gardaí within days.
"I was kidnapped by gardaí because they had no legal authority to arrest me again on the same issue,” he said.
"They weren't interested in the truth of what had occurred in any given situation. What they wanted was results to be able to convict people and to be able to claim results. And in the middle of the night I woke to hear screams.
"Shortly after that there was the keys in the door and I was taken down to under Bridewell [garda station] in a tunnel where I was assaulted and beaten and tortured.
"I was then taken up to the locker room and they laid into me. They kept repeating a scenario that they had worked out would be 'my story'. It wasn't true and I knew what they were doing because I studied a bit of psychology.
"It was a strategy to get me to sign a piece of paper because they knew that once I signed a statement that they would get a conviction in the Special Criminal Court.
"You would expect if I was arrested, having allegedly been involved in a robbery, that they would raid my house and search it. They never did. They knew there was nothing there.
"The Heavy Gang all worked hand in hand with the Special Criminal Court. They were each co-dependent. And they couldn't get their arrests and detentions without the Offences Against the State Act. So you have these three items which are intertwined.
"As an editor of the paper, I was writing stories about both the Heavy Gang and the Special Criminal Court for years. And the Special Criminal Court was something that we as a political party and as human rights activists opposed.”
Mr Breatnach was eventually coerced into signing the statement. The beatings had taken their toll both physically and mentally.
‘Staying alive’
"I was concerned primarily at that stage about staying alive. I was, at some stage later, put back in my cell and I was so concerned that I would be taken back out I considered hanging myself.
"I wasn't thinking straight. I was totally traumatised. I couldn't see myself living with having implicated other innocent people.”
In the podcast, Mr Breatnach talks about being arrested and released on numerous occasions, and how initially the case was thrown out of the district court, but he and the other men decided to take a civil case.
Specific gardaí were named and he felt the State might try to use the Special Criminal Court to weaken the civil case.
His predictions were correct and, one week before Christmas, he and his co-accused were brought into the Special Criminal Court and charged with the robbery.
It would become one of the most dramatic and longest-running criminal trials in the history of the State.
New trial
During the trial it was alleged that one of the non-jury Special Criminal Court judges was falling asleep and not hearing evidence, but when this was raised by the defence team, it was ignored.
Then the same judge died and it transpired he had been in ill health and on medication. The trial was abandoned and a new trial a few months later focused on the "confessions” of the men.
The woman who lived in the house beside the railway, which the gang had taken over on the night of the robbery, said her statement identifying Mr Breatnach was written by gardaí and they had asked her to sign it.
She said it wasn't true that she could identify any of the men because they had their faces covered.
In the end, the judges said Mr Breatnach had been held in illegal and unconstitutional detention. They concluded he did ask for his solicitor and didn't get one, and was injured.
But they went on to say gardaí hadn't acted illegally, and that the "statements” given by the men were free and voluntary and enough to convict.
Loyalists mock death of Pope Francis at Apprentice Boys parade in Lisburn
By Connla Young, Crime and Security Correspondent, Irish News, April 22nd, 2025
ONLOOKERS SING AND DANCE ‘NO POPE OF ROME’ ANTHEMN BLASTED OUT BY LOYALIST BAND
The death of Pope Francis has been mocked by loyalists during an Apprentice Boys parade in Lisburn attended by DUP Stormont minister Paul Givan and other party elected representatives.
Footage from the annual Easter parade on Monday shows a loyalist band playing ‘No Pope of Rome’.
Several DUP members posted photos of the Easter event on social media, although there is no suggestion they were present when the tune was played.
The offensive song that mocks the Catholic faith was played just hours after the Pontiff died.
It includes the words “No, no Pope of Rome, no chapels to sadden my eyes, no nuns and no priests, no Rosary beads, every day is the Twelfth of July”.
It also includes the lines “oh give me a home where there’s no Pope of Rome, where there’s nothing but Protestants stay, where seldom is heard a discouraging word and flute bands play The Sash every day”.
‘F**k the Pope and Virgin Mary’ chants at Coleraine FC Social Club condemnedOpens in new window.
Posts by Givan and other DUP leaders
A post on Paul Givan's Facebook page shows the Stormont minister with party colleagues Jonathan Buckely and Edwin Poots in Lisburn
Dozens of onlookers appear to be singing along with the band and dancing on the street just a short distance from where a loyalist threat was recently issued to the residents of a mixed housing estate.
It has been reported that leaflets claiming to be from the UFF were put through letter boxes in the mixed Altona Drive and Altona Gardens districts warning that if residents remove unionist flags recently placed on lampposts they “will be dealt with”.
Up to 50 bands and 6,000 participants were expected at the annual Apprentice Boys parade on Monday.
Those in attendance during the day included several high-profile DUP members.
Stormont education minister Paul Givan, who is an assembly member for the Lagan Valley area and his party colleagues, former minister Edwin Poots and MLA Jonathan Buckley attended.
Upper Bann MP Carla Lockhart was also present.
She and Mr Givan later posted similarly worded social media messages describing the atmosphere in Lisburn as “first class” while Mr Poots wrote of “super crowds and a great atmosphere”.
Lisburn and Castlereagh City councillor James Tinsley, who works for Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly, also attended.
Robinson and Little-Pengelly express condolences
Posting on social media Ms Little-Pengelly later said “Pope Francis was held in high regard and admiration by so many”.
DUP party leader Gavin Robinson extended “respectful sympathies to all those grieving his passing”.
Lagan Valley Alliance assembly member David Honeyford said: “It’s really disappointing to hear of this provocative and insensitive behaviour yesterday.
“This would have been disrespectful at anytime, but is especially on the day of the Pope’s passing.
“Those involved are not representative of the vast majority of people out on Monday, on what should have been a good day for Lisburn and the wider area.”
The DUP, Apprentice Boys and PSNI have been contacted.
