The Freethinker
EX-IRA gunrunner Gerry McGeough, above a member of the Irish Society for Christian Civilisation, was assaulted at the weekend while he and others were trying to pray away a Pride parade held at the weekend in Cookstown, Northern Ireland.
The Belfast Telegraph reported that McGeough, once jailed for attempted murder, was standing alongside eight men who praying and holding a statute of the Virgin Mary as an LGBTQ march made its way through the town.
McGeough, 63, later described those parading as “glorifying the sin of sodomy” and lambasted Sinn Fein for taking part in the event.
McGeough’s assailant, 44, was arrested seconds after landing the blow. She was arrested on suspicion of common assault. It is understood she was released pending a report to the Public Prosecution Service.
In a video posted to YouTube by the Irish Society for Christian Civilisation, McGeough said:
We were there to pray a peaceful rosary of reparation for the offence given to God by a so-called Pride parade.
The ultra-Catholic nationalist group, Síol na hÉireann, later claimed Mr McGeough had suffered a heart attack on Sunday morning.
Molly Farrell of Mid Ulster Pride told The Irish News she was unaware of the incident.
We had made it clear from the beginning that we remain peaceful and don’t engage with protesters. I don’t imagine it was anybody who was part of the parade.
She added that she was “very sorry to hear what happened” and that the parade itself had been a great success.
In 2011, McGeough became the first republican jailed for historic offences since the Good Friday Agreement after he was convicted of the 1981 attempted murder of part-time Ulster Defence Regiment member Sammy Brush 30 years earlier. He was released in 2013.
In an interview broadcast on Purged TV, McGeough said the parade was:
Glorifying the sin of sodomy. We were not protesting, we were simply praying a peaceful rosary when all of a sudden I was assaulted.
The Mid-Ulster Pride parade was backed by clergy as well as Sinn Fein, the SDLP and People Before Profit. Crowds came out onto the streets to cheer and support it.
McGeough rounded on his former party for taking part.
I’ve been in several prisons across the world for republican activity. A lot of people we see in Sinn Fein today couldn’t be found for love or money when the bullets were being fired way back in the 70s, 80s and 90s.
Sinn Fein is an anti-Catholic organisation. When I was a member of the Irish republican movement, it was standing by Catholicism especially in places like East Tyrone.
Now we have Sinn Fein out promoting something that during the time of the hunger-strike 40 years ago would have been utterly repellent to any self-respecting Irish republican in this part of the world
McGeough joined the East Tyrone Brigade in 1975, aged 16. In 1981, he shot Mr Brush – who also worked as a postman – as he delivered mail in Aughnacloy, Co Tyrone.
A bullet proof jacket saved the part-time UDR soldier’s life and he returned fire with his own pistol wounding McGeough. The IRA man was treated in a Dublin hospital but escaped despite being under armed guard.
In 1983, his application for political asylum in Sweden was refused. In 1988, he was arrested crossing the Dutch-German border with weapons in a car. He was charged with attacks on the British Army in the Rhine and held in Germany for four years.
McGeough was then extradited to the US where he was charged with attempting to buy surface-to-air missiles in 1983. After serving three years in American jails, he was deported to the Republic in 1996.
He became a prominent Sinn Fein figure but later left the party in protest at its abortion stance.
The assault follows the recent beating up in Alabama of deranged hate preacher Daniel Wayne Rusk, above, by a female student at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). He returned to the campus this week, where he got spat at and had his signature hat stolen. His equally crazy wife Mary reported on Facebook:
UAB Round 2. Addressing thieves and thugs. They stole again today (Daniel’s hat) and spit at him and the campus administration and cops did nothing to hold them accountable. I told one officer that the student spit at him and she just waved me off and refused to do anything.
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