Sinn Fein IRA event: Republicans 'groomed a boy barely older than a child into terror and death'

Mr Donaldson said it would be “depraved” for anyone to take glee in his death, and pointed the finger of blame at those who had been “fuelling his heart” with ideas of republican violence.

Cork man Mr Ahern (sometimes spelled Aherne) died on March 10, when a landmine he was planting to blow up an army patrol detonated prematurely.

He was the first southerner in the PIRA’s ranks to die.

Sinn Fein was scheduled to mark his death with a parade involving up to 300 people at 7.30pm on Friday night in the Roslea area, with speeches from party figures.

The Fermanagh branch of the party described Tony Ahern as “a young Irish patriot” who “gave his life for his country”.

SEFF works with roughly 7,000 people, such as Troubles attack survivors, the bereaved, and their wider family circles, helping them with counselling, physiotherapy, benefits advice, and more.

Despite its name, today the charity has branches across Northern Ireland, and one in London.

Its director Mr Donaldson said: "Tony Ahern was little more than a child who had been radicalised by an ideology which bred death and destruction.

"He was indoctrinated to believe that he was landing a blow for Ireland in travelling from Co Cork to Co Fermanagh to carry out a terrorist action against members of the security forces.

"We take no glee in his death, to do so would be depraved and would only debase our own humanity.

"But contrary to what is suggested by the revisionists within Sinn Fein and others, Tony Ahern and others within republicanism and loyalist terror organisations were not heroes, they were not martyrs.

"In the circumstance of Mr Ahern's death the heroes and martyrs were a soldier and RUC police officer who carried an elderly priest down the steep bank which brought them to the scene where Tony lay dead, his body in multiple parts as a result of the explosion, so that the priest could anoint the body.

"The very people who Mr Ahern and his 'comrades' would have sought to murder were part of a response which was rooted in humanity and respect in death."

He said that “instead of trying to make political collateral out of Mr Ahern's anniversary,” republicans would do better “apologising to the Ahern family for grooming him and fuelling his heart to the point where as a teenager he was prepared to murder his fellow countryman”.

Mr Donaldson also said that Troubles violence in south-east Fermanagh – most comprised of “ethnic-motivated terror” – claimed 42 lives in what is a very sparsely populated region, abetted by the unwillingness of the Irish government to co-operate in clamping down on bombers and gunmen moving across the border.

These 42 lives, he said, include 35 were murders by the PIRA, two heart attack deaths through PIRA bombs, one murder by the Official IRA, and two members of the PIRA (Tony Ahern and Seamus McElwaine) dying as a result of their own actions.

He added: “There were also the murders of two Roman Catholic civilians by Sutherland and Highlander Soldiers, of which they rightly were convicted and served prison sentences.”