Pro-IRA singing at West Belfast Festival should stop funding

The DUP Leader on Belfast City Council Ald Brian Kingston has asked if a concert at the West Belfast Festival received any public funding.

Ald Kingston was raising the issue after one of the sets at the concert involved the crowd chanting “Ooh ah up the Ra”.

By Brian Kingston MLA

Belfast North

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Ald Kingston said,

“The PIRA murdered and maimed thousands of people in Northern Ireland. For concert goers to celebrate the PIRA is sickening. If public funding was used to pay for such a concert then it should be recouped immediately.

Belfast City Council stands for inclusiveness and a shared future. If people wish to sing about the PIRA, they should forgo the ability to receive any public money. For the Council to be associated with such offensive behaviour on the anniversary of the Omagh Bomb is disgusting and reprehensible.

I will also be investigating what other commercial sponsors were involved in the event and asking them to publicly distance themselves.

This is now an annual tradition where every year hundreds of teenagers, led by people who should know better, glorify the PIRA in song.”

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