Ireland’s president has pulled out of a dinner at Belfast’s city hall to mark both the centenary of the 1916 Easter Rising against British rule and the Battle of the Somme.
Michael D Higgins was the Sinn Féin lord mayor of Belfast’s guest of honour at the event on 8 April. But the head of state in the Irish Republic withdrew from the civic dinner after some unionists said they would boycott it.
Arder Carson said he was extremely disappointed that a failure to achieve crossparty support resulted in Higgins’s pullout
He said: “The overall programme for the decade was agreed by full council and has crossparty support; and that position has not changed.
“A lot of hard work has gone into creating an inclusive programme of events which is respectful of all viewpoints and which focuses on the key events of our shared history, and those which have impacted on our city.
“In this important year which reflects on the centenary of the 1916 Easter Rising and the Battle of the Somme, Belfast city council has shown leadership in how we mark these events and I would wish that to continue.
“The dinner will, of course, be going ahead on 8 April and I am very much looking forward to the occasion.”
The first minister of Northern Ireland and Democratic Unionist leader, Arlene Foster, also generated controversy on Thursday in relation to the 1916 rising. Foster described those who staged the rebellion as “egotists” who had no democratic backing.
Foster also refused an Irish government invitation to attend the official ceremony to mark the rising’s centenary in Dublin on Easter Sunday. She said the rebellion had been “a violent act that killed many hundreds of Irish people”.
The city council dinner was also to mark the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Somme, during which thousands of men, many of them from the unionist community in Northern Ireland, were killed.
