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
Tomás Mac Giolla Republican Army (IRA) around 1950. He was interned by the Irish government during the 1956–62 IRA Border Campaign. He also served a number of prison sentences in Mountjoy Prison, Dublin. He married May Mac Giolla who died on 24 March 2018. At the 1961 general election, Mac Giolla unsuccessfully contested the Tipperary North constituency for Sinn Féin. In 1962 he became president of Sinn Féin and was one of the people who moved the party to the left during the 1960s. In 1969 Sinn Féin split and Mac Giolla remained leader of Official Sinn Féin. It was also in 1962