UUP councillor hits back at Fr Chesney claims

Mrs Hamilton, who was herself wounded in the attack, was responding to a report from an anonymous republican source who claimed that whilst the Provisional IRA was responsible for the attack, Fr Chesney not a member of the IRA, but a republican sympathiser who had no involvement with the triple car bomb attack on the County Londonderry village.

The UUP Alderman told the Sentinel: “If he wasn’t involved in the attack then why was he sent to Donegal, and why did this republican source not come forward before now? I cannot figure out why this material is appearing now.”

Last week’s press report quoted a figure who claimed to have been in a senior position within the IRA at the time of Claudy.

He said he played a “co-ordinating role” between IRA units in the city, the county, West Tyrone and Donegal and would have known who was in the IRA at the time - Fr Chesney, he maintained, was not an IRA member but someone who helped give secure passage to members of the IRA.

The source said: “I can state categorically Fr James Chesney was not in the IRA. I can also state he was not involved in the Claudy bombing. Those are the facts.”