Mother of alleged IRA victim urges electorate to remember her son when voting

The mother a 21-year-old Co Armagh man who was beaten to death by up to 10 men in a barn in Co Monaghan 13 years ago has appealed to voters to remember him when they vote on Saturday.

Paul Quinn from Cullyhanna, was lured to the barn in Tullycoora, near Oram, on October 20th, 2007, where he was set upon by men with metal and nail-studded bars and beaten for more than half an hour. Every major bone in his body was broken. He died at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda, a few hours later.

His family has always held the IRA responsible. No one has been charged with his murder.

His mother, Breege Quinn, speaking on RTÉ radio, repeated her rejection of suggestions by Sinn Féin MLA and Northern Ireland Finance Minister Conor Murphy that her son's death was connected to criminal activity in the area.

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She called on Mr Murphy to apologise and retract his comments made in the aftermath of the murder. She also called on Mr Murphy to bring any information he had about her son's death to An Garda Síochána and the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI).

"He definitely was not involved in criminality. That was Sinn Féin spin. That was Conor Murphy spin. We have asked him and we have asked Mary Lou [McDonald, Sinn Féin president] to ask him to apologise to us publicly, to tell us who were the people he spoke to in Cullyhana, because he said he spoke to the IRA in Cullyhana and they assured him they did not murder Paul Quinn."

The courts

She said she knew who killed her son and she believed Sinn Féin had key information that could bring them before the courts.

“I am saying this evening to people who are going out to vote on Saturday, unless Conor Murphy or Mary Lou McDonald come out publicly and tell us who the IRA were that Conor Murphy spoke to, I’m saying to the people: ‘Remember Paul Quinn when you are marking your X.’”

Ms McDonald, speaking on RTÉ television later on Monday evening, said there was no question of Mr Quinn being a criminal.

“I have spoken to Conor Murphy before and he is very clear that he never said that and that is not his view... The criminals are the people who took Paul’s life.”

Asked if Mr Murphy should go to gardaí and tell them whom in the IRA he spoke to, she said: “I think the job of the investigation falls to the PSNI and to An Garda Síochána...I believe that Conor has been very forthright in dealing with these matters.”

‘Extremely difficult’

Meanwhile the son of an Irish Army soldier killed by the IRA said it would be “extremely difficult” to see Sinn Féin enter government after the election.

David Kelly, son of Pte Patrick Kelly who was killed alongside Garda Gary Sheehan during the rescue of kidnapped businessman Don Tidey in Ballinamore, Co Leitrim, in 1983, said that he felt Sinn Féin members and supporters were still protecting his father’s killer.

No one has ever been convicted of the killings of Pte Kelly or Garda Sheehan.

Brendan McFarlane, the former IRA prison leader, was acquitted in the Special Criminal Court in 2008 of falsely imprisoning Mr Tidey during the kidnapping. He is a Sinn Féin activist and has helped canvass for the party’s election candidates in Northern Ireland.

Mr Kelly said he can understand why after years of austerity voters might be looking for a change . “I can understand why people might talk of change, but I am just saying that the type of change they are looking at is a party which is part of a movement that for years were involved in murders,” he told The Irish Times.

It would be “extremely difficult” to see a Sinn Féin TD become minister for justice or defence given that his father had “worn the golden badge of Óglaigh na hÉireann with pride”, he said.