An MLA has claimed that "hunger strike commemorations are only being used as another weapon in what republicans would describe as 'the struggle'". Commenting on the use of a parish centre near Dunloy, Co. Antrim, for a hunger strikers commemoration DUP assemblyman Mervyn Storey said he was "extremely disappointed" that the centre was being used to stage what he called "an insult to the victims in north Antrim".

Of course he's right, all the various Sinn Fein's have been trying to use the commemoration of the hunger strikes to bolster their own standing. In Dungiven, Co. Londonderry, there are crudely erected 'memorials' looking like cheap billboards, at least one of which was emblazoned with the faces of the 10 dead criminals and simply the words "Republican Sinn Fein" and another sponsored by the IRSP, showing that it's not just the Provos who are vying to associate themselves with the men who died for their dogma.

Sometimes I wonder how nationalists can so conveniently overlook the fact that these were gunrunners and murderers when they so readily venerate them, praising their "bravery" and how they "stood up for what they believed in". No matter how hard I try, and I sometimes do, I can't see myself ever understanding the mindset that can honour 10 bloodthirsty killers as heroes. Others, I wonder if they really are oblivious to the attempts by Sinn Fein (in all its flavours) to use the hunger strikers for their own political and financial advantage, even more in death than they did when they were alive.