A senior British judge has rejected claims that he failed to declare an interest in the recent case concerning anonymity for soldiers involved in the Bloody Sunday killings.
Lord Woolf was accused by the Celtic League, a cultural group representing Celtic communities in different countries, of failing to declare that he had served in the army.
Lord Woolf, the Master of the Rolls, said he did not believe he had an interest which ought to have been declared because his time in the army was two years spent doing compulsory national service more than 40 years ago, mostly with the army legal service before he was called to the Bar.
Lord Woolf headed the panel of three appeal judges who last month upheld a High Court ruling that the soldiers involved in the 1972 shootings in the Bogside area of Derry should remain anonymous during the inquiry into the killings.
The Celtic League dismissed Lord Woolf's defence.
It said it would be writing to the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, to express its concern that the openness of the new Bloody Sunday inquiry had been undermined.
