Murdered IRA Volunteer honoured

Sinn Féin TDs Arthur Morgan and Aengus Ó Snodaigh, Mary Murphy, candidate in the forthcoming local elections, and Conor Murphy MLA at the second annual commemoration in honour of Volunteer Keith Rogers

"The family, friends and comrades of IRA Volunteer Keith Rogers know only too well the cost of criminality within our society and do not need lectures from self-appointed moral guardians like the Michael McDowells of this world telling us that the republican struggle to rid this country of British rule is criminal or corrupt," Sinn Féin TD Aengus Ó Snodaigh told the annual commemoration of the young South Armagh IRA Volunteer, murdered by criminals in March 2002.

The Sinn Féin TD told the gathering of approximately 2,000 that no republican could condone or wish to condone any criminal behaviour. He went on: "Given the circumstances of Keith's death and the involvement of criminals in it, it is appropriate and right for me to repeat here again that anyone within the republican family involved in any activity or actions which are criminal or indeed fall below the standards set by men like Keith Rogers should leave our ranks immediately."

Newry and Armagh Sinn Féin MLA Conor Murphy, who chaired proceedings at the commemoration on the South Armagh border with North Louth, said that republicans have a duty to defend the struggle. "We have to display the same ingenuity, the same strategic approach and the same moral courage as demonstrated by the prisoners in the H-Blocks and Armagh in the late 1970s and early 1980s as they confronted Thatcher and her criminalisation policy," he said.