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 Diarmada Irish language, Gaelic revival and Irish nationalism in general, including the Gaelic League and (early in his career) the Irish Catholic fraternity the Ancient Order of Hibernians. He was national organiser for Sinn Féin, and later manager of the newspaper "Irish Freedom", started in 1910 by Bulmer Hobson and others. Mac Diarmada was born John MacDermott in Corranmore, close to Kiltyclogher in County Leitrim, an area where the landscape was marked by reminders of poverty and oppression. His father Donald McDermott was a member of the IRB and a friend of John Daly. Surrounding Mac Diarmada in rural Leitrim, there