Sinn Féin's chief negotiator Martin McGuinness has said that "nothing should be read" into the fact that neither he nor party leader Gerry Adams was represented at the 90th anniversary Easter Rising commemoration on Easter Sunday in Dublin.
Mr Adams's absence in particular caused puzzlement in some Dublin political quarters as the leaders of all the political parties in the South, as well as SDLP leader Mark Durkan, joined President Mary McAleese and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern on the reviewing stand outside the GPO to review the Irish Army military parade.
There was additional surprise related to the fact that provisional republicans frequently cite Easter 1916 as justification for the violent actions of the Provisional IRA during the Troubles. Mr McGuinness spoke at a commemoration in Cork on Easter Sunday while Mr Adams, who had attended a republican commemoration in Dublin on the Saturday, spoke at the republican plot at Milltown Cemetery in Belfast on Easter Sunday.
Mr McGuinness and Mr Adams were on leave over the Easter holiday but yesterday on his return from this break Mr McGuinness said no significance should be attached to his and Mr Adams's non-appearance at the parade of 2,500 members of the Defence Forces and veterans of peacekeeping missions on Easter Sunday in Dublin.
"I had a longstanding commitment which I gave to republicans in Cork city that I would speak at their commemoration, and I was very proud and honoured to do so, and thankfully thousands and thousands of Cork citizens turned out for that commemoration. So, everything doesn't necessarily have to be in Dublin," he said.
"Gerry Adams spoke in Dublin the day before and spoke in Belfast the following day. We were adequately represented [in Dublin on Easter Sunday] by very high-profile politicians like Bairbre de Brún (MEP), Pat Doherty (MP), Arthur Morgan (TD) and Michelle Gildernew (MP)."
"That was the only reason. There is nothing else to be read into it other than we had committed ourselves. Long before the Government in the South had decided to engage in a commemoration we had committed ourselves to these important commemorations. In fact the [Sinn Féin] Dublin commemoration was moved to the Saturday in order to facilitate the Government's commemoration on the Sunday."
