Tyrone republican 'volunteers day' shows zero sensitivity for IRA victims - DUP

Mr Buchanan said: “To erect posters for this event in Pomeroy where the PIRA systematically targeted Protestants under the Jim Lynagh / Paddy McKearney strategy is heartless and offensive to those families who still mourn their loved one’s death.

"The PIRA in Tyrone which Sinn Fein is celebrating at this event, is single-handedly responsible for the deaths of more Tyrone people than any other organisation. Scores of people of all faiths and none are in their graves today because the East Tyrone brigade either murdered them or sent them to their death.

"This is all another effort by Sinn Fein and Michelle O’Neill to rewrite history. An effort to immortalise terrorist killers as heroes.

"There was always an alternative to killing. Indeed, the irony of Sinn Fein celebrating people like Jim Lynagh, is that Lynagh met the SAS because he was betrayed by very high-level informers in the republican leadership some of whom might even be standing in Ardboe.

"With their expensive cars, intelligence service pensions and big houses, 'volunteer' had a different meaning for some republicans going to Ardboe.”