Sinn Féin for Justice, Equality and Law Reform Michael McDowell publicly accused three of the Sinn Féin leadership, Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness and Martin Ferris (TD for Kerry North) of being on the seven-man IRA Army Council; they later denied this. On 27 February 2005, a demonstration against the murder of Robert McCartney on 30 January 2005 was held in east Belfast. Alex Maskey, a former Sinn Féin Lord Mayor of Belfast, was told by relatives of McCartney to "hand over the 12" IRA members involved. The McCartney family, although formerly Sinn Féin voters themselves, urged witnesses to the crime to contact
Seán Mac Stíofáin Seán Mac Stíofáin Seán Mac Stíofáin (17 February 1928 – 18 May 2001), born John Stephenson, was an English-born chief of staff of the Provisional IRA, a position he held between 1969 and 1972. Although he used the Gaelicised version of name in later life, Mac Stíofáin was born John Edward Drayton Stephenson in Leytonstone, London, in 1928. An only child, his father was an English solicitor's clerk and his mother an Ulster Protestant from east Belfast. He stated his mother had left an impression on him at the age of seven with her instruction: I'm Irish, therefore you're Irish…