UDA-linked group's threat to young Gaels wearing GAA shirts

THE UDA-linked Ulster Political Research Group (UPRG) is putting the lives and safety of young Gaels at risk through an online post by the North Antrim and Derry UPRG linking the GAA to the IRA, Sinn Féin's Caoimhe Archibald has warned.

In the post the unionists use a photograph of Sinn Féin MP Paul Maskey with young people wearing GAA shirts along with the message “Sinn Féin = IRA = GAA. No there's no connection.”

Earlier this year the group posted a message saying “When you see someone out with a GAA kit on, remember that they might as well say I am a republican and support the IRA . . . the GAA is the sporting wing of Sinn Féin/IRA.”

Caoimhe Archibald, who received a death threat from the shadowy 'Real UFF' in the days before the Westminster election, said:

“Apart from the threat levelled at me, the UDA in the north Antrim area are almost certainly behind the killing of Brian McIlhagga in January and at least six shootings in which one man lost his leg.”

McIlhagga was shot in the leg with a shotgun when a UDA gang dragged him from his Ballymoney home. He bled to death as the blast severed an artery.

The increasing threat posed by the UDA in the north Antrim area is underpinned by its boast that it was the only UDA brigade to vote against the UDA ceasefire in 1994. Over the years it was accused of numerous sectarian attacks throughout the north Antrim and north Derry area.

Caoimhe Archibald said:

“The silence of the unionist parties in face of this violence and threats is deafening.”