Raw emotions surfaced at the Quinn Support Group meeting yesterday in Crossmaglen, writes Gerry Moriarty, Northern Editor
The atmosphere was electric for most of the night in Crossmaglen Community Centre, just as it was when Maria Caraher from Cullyhanna rose to speak. This was a night of raw emotions that pitched neighbour against neighbour, brother against brother, and republican against republican.
Ms Caraher was a neighbour of Paul Quinn's parents, Breege and Stephen, who were sitting with other Quinn Support Group committee members on the top table in the hall.
She was from a staunch republican family, a sister of Fergal Caraher who was shot dead in disputed circumstances by the British army in 1990, and a sister also of Michael Caraher, a convicted member of the IRA sniper gang in south Armagh who murdered nine members of the British security forces.
Speaking directly to the Quinns, she recalled the days after Paul Quinn's murder in October. "I went down to the wake and I was talking to Breege," she said. "I said it then, I said it since, and I say it now, and I won't waver from it: I believe that whoever murdered your son should be put behind bars."
She also referred to how she was asked by the family to leave the wake house, prompting James Quinn, Paul's brother, sitting in the row ahead of her to interrupt. He asked her to leave, he said, because at the time she said she did not believe the IRA beat Paul Quinn to death in a Co Monaghan barn.
"I know the IRA murdered him. Local people here know it as well . . . anyone who does not believe that shouldn't be there [ at the wake]," he said.
It was a point he made earlier in the meeting. His brother was "no angel but he was no criminal", as his father had previously said.
"Paul was killed because he fell out with some people who were associated with an organisation that kills people. So, they killed him. It's just that simple."
This was just one of several exchanges in the Crossmaglen Community Centre on Thursday night. The hall was filled to overflowing with more than 300 people. Unlike the meeting in nearby Cullyhanna two weeks earlier, Sinn Féin representatives were present, as were IRA members. The mood was distinctly with the Quinns but there were local people there sympathetic to Sinn Féin.
One such was Declan Murphy, brother of local Sinn Féin MP and Minister Conor Murphy. He said the Quinn campaign was "used and abused by people that have an axe to grind. And that is going to drive this campaign into the ground . . . All I hear tonight is an attack on Sinn Féin".
Chairman Seamus Bellew said he had no axe to grind. He supported the republican ideology but had never supported "IRA methods". He said that in south Armagh he had "put in 20 odd years of pure torture, of fear of the IRA, fear of the British army, and fear of the police, all three".
He said the group was asking people to accept there was an organisation in south Armagh "that signs and executes death warrants . . . We can tell them to stop if we can speak with a single voice".
Aidan Murphy warned against the Quinn group acting as "judge and jury" on who killed Paul Quinn. Pointing across the room at Seamus Murphy - a local man who supports the Quinn group, and is also an SDLP press officer - he said the "SDLP publicity department is driving this campaign. It is actually bragging that there is political gain to be got from the campaign."
Most in the hall would have realised the two men are brothers.
Sinn Féin councillor Terry Hearty said Sinn Féin "totally and utterly condemned" the murder. He also issued a statement yesterday describing the Quinn group as a "so-called justice group". He said the SDLP had assumed control of the group for "electoral advantage".
During the meeting Jim McAllister, himself a disaffected Sinn Féin member, again insisted the group was non-political, adding that Sinn Féin members would attempt to divide the group by attacking him, SDLP councillor and committee member Geraldine Donnelly, and Seamus Murphy.
"They don't like people who ask questions. They don't like people who don't accept the pat answers," he said.
Said Breege Quinn: "Those people who murdered Paul will have that on the their conscience for the rest of their lives. But there are the people who know the people that murdered Paul - they too must have a conscience. And I just don't know how they are getting through because I can hardly sit, stand or walk every day [since Paul was murdered]."