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
Charlie Hurley (Irish republican) offered a promotion and a transfer to Haulbowline Island, but declined on the grounds that this entailed enlisting in the Royal Navy, albeit in a purely administrative role. Returning to Cork, he became friends with Liam Deasy who introduced him to the Irish republican movement. In 1917 he took a job at Castletownbere and it as there that he joined the Irish Volunteers in 1917. He was also a member of Sinn Fein, the Gaelic Athletic Association and the Gaelic League. In 1918 he was sentenced to five years penal servitude for possession of arms and plans of the British