‘Traitors’ poster put up at Michelle O’Neill’s office

A banner accusing Sinn Féin of being “traitors” has been put up at the office of the party’s deputy leader Michelle O’Neill.

The banner was stuck to the office shutters after O’Neill laid a laurel wreath at the Cenotaph at Belfast City Hall on Sunday, becoming the first senior Sinn Féin figure to take part in an official Remembrance ceremony.

The banner – which was put up at the office O’Neill shares with Mid Ulster MP Cathal Mallaghan in Cookstown in County Tyrone – featured the word “traitors” alongside bloody handprints and a poppy.

Asked about the poster, O’Neill said it was “difficult” to hear criticism about her decision to attend the commemoration but she had a role to play.

“I’ve committed to being a first minister for all and I will live up to that at every turn,” she said.

“I understand some people – particularly republicans – have difficulties with me attending, they’re entitled to express their views, however I have a role to play.”

She defended her attendance at the event and said it was important she went.

She added that she was unable to attend an Armistice Day event at Stormont later on Monday, but that other Sinn Féin politicians would take part.

O’Neill had received some criticism before attending the event.

In a letter published in the Irish News, more than 100 relatives of victims of the Troubles from the republican community in County Tyrone hit out at her decision.

The letter said they felt “deeply hurt, frustrated and angry”.

“Of course it is difficult to hear that, particularly from people who I’ve known all of my life, but I also absolutely accept they are entitled to feel how they feel, particularly if they have lost a loved one,” O’Neill told reporters on Monday.

Meanwhile a protester at the Cenotaph held up a banner referencing IRA violence.

Posting on social media ahead of the ceremony, O’Neill said she was “committed to representing everyone equally”.

“Through my words and actions, I will honour that commitment,” she said.

“We each have our own identity, experiences, and perspectives.

“As an Irish republican who believes in a united Ireland, I have my own perspective also.

“As we move towards a better future I am committed as first minister to moving beyond old limits and building bridges.”

In a message on the wreath that she laid, O’Neill wrote: “Today I remember all lives lost in the horror of war and conflict – past and present.”

More than 20 years have passed since Alex Maskey became the first Sinn Féin lord mayor to pay his respects to the war dead at the Cenotaph.

On 1 July 2002 he laid a laurel wreath at the monument two hours ahead of the main council ceremony to commemorate the anniversary of the Battle of the Somme.

Maskey described his gesture as a “major step for republicans and nationalists on this island”.

He did not attend the main ceremony that year, refusing to take part in what he called a “military commemoration” of the World War One battle.

Since then, Sinn Féin politicians have always declined to attend Cenotaph wreath laying ceremonies in any official capacity.

In the years that have passed, there have been other firsts and many other gestures in a bid to promote reconciliation and good relations.

In 2016 Martin McGuinness travelled to France and Belgium as part of a two-day trip to World War One battlefields.

He laid wreaths at the sites where the Somme and the Battle of Messines took place a century earlier.

In July 2022 O’Neill laid a laurel wreath at the Belfast Cenotaph to commemorate the anniversary of the Battle of the Somme.

However, she declined to be drawn on why she did not attend the wider Somme commemoration event at the same venue that year.