Mr Lyons said,
“Murder, bombing, shooting or racketeering were the hallmarks of PIRA terrorism. Those evil deeds were wrong forty years ago and there is no justification for them today.
The continued attempts by Sinn Fein to rewrite history and elevate PIRA terrorists as heroes and glorious freedom fighters will have consequences for the future. This was typified with young people regularly breaking into “Up The Ra” chants at sporting and social events.
Such glamorising will corrupt young people and breed a new generation of believers in terror. A society that glorifies the gunmen of the past is planting the seeds for the gunmen of the future.
Violence and/or the threat of it, is never acceptable and the DUP always advocates the democratic route as opposed to arguing that there was “no alternative” to violence as Michelle O’Neill has recently said.”