My Great War veteran ancestors would not be ‘honoured’ by wreath laying political stunt by Michelle O’Neill of Sinn Fein

Both of my grandfathers served at the Battle of the Somme, Private Samuel Roney (9th Battalion Royal Irish Fusiliers, 36th Ulster Division) and Private Dynes Wallace (Royal Army Medical Corps, attached 19th Western Division).

Neither they nor any of their fallen comrades require to be ‘honoured’ by the laying of a (non-poppy) wreath by Sinn Fein/IRA which, in any case, regarded the Kaiser’s Germany as being, in the words of the Easter Rising Proclamation, ‘gallant allies in Europe’.

They are certainly not to be equated with those who regard Enniskillen, Darkley, La Mon or Bloody Friday as ‘acts of war’.

This aim is certainly one of the motives behind the political stunt by Michelle O’Neill on July 1.

This cynical attempt to appropriate the fallen of the Great War, accompanied by the usual honeyed words, only serves to deepen the contempt in which Sinn Fein/IRA are held by all decent people.

Robert Wallace, Portadown