Sinn Fein under fire over choice of council candidate who caused Twitter rows

Serious questions have been raised over the suitability of a Sinn Fein council election candidate who has repeatedly sparked controversy on Twitter.

Blogger and academic Catherine Kelly is to stand for Fermanagh and Omagh District Council in next May's election.

Her candidacy was announced by Sinn Fein West Tyrone MP Orfhlaith Begley in a recent tweet, and confirmed last night by the party.

According to Ms Begley, Ms Kelly will stand alongside new Sinn Fein candidates Padraigin Ni Cheallaigh and Kevin McColgan.

Ms Kelly, who is understood to have spent time living in the United States, was last year the subject of a harassment complaint alleged by a minister in the Republic in relation to online articles and social media posts.

Minister for Social Protection Regina Doherty contacted gardai in connection to comments made by Ms Kelly after she published an article about the collapse of a company Ms Doherty had run with her husband.

It was reported that Ms Kelly was subsequently approached by gardai while passing through Dublin Airport, who cautioned her about her social media posts and online articles referencing Ms Doherty.

In 2015, Ms Kelly posted tweets about IRA victim Ann Travers, whose sister Mary was shot dead and father Tom seriously injured in an IRA gun attack as they left Mass at a south Belfast church in April 1984.

Ms Travers said Ms Kelly had made reference to her return to Twitter after online abuse from users previously forced her to leave the platform temporarily.

Ms Travers said she reactivated her Twitter account on the advice given by a close friend before she passed away from cancer.

One tweet, which has been viewed by the Belfast Telegraph, shows a post by Ms Kelly describing Ms Travers - who is herself a cancer survivor - as an "another attention seeker whose 'poor me' tactics fell flat on face (sic)".

Appearing to refer to Ms Travers' return to Twitter, she continues: "And she did it because someone with cancer would have told her to (sic)."

Another tweet read: "Did Ann Travers close her account, tell the press then reopen the account when she got no attention?"

Ms Travers said she had no option but to subsequently 'block' Ms Kelly's account.

"At the time I was really upset. I had been receiving a lot of abuse regarding my own family," Ms Travers told the Belfast Telegraph.

SDLP councillor Mairia Cahill, who yesterday posted screenshots of Ms Kelly's tweets, said she believed the party had learned nothing from recent controversy surrounding former West Tyrone MP, Barry McElduff.

Mr McElduff posted footage on Twitter of himself posing with a Kingsmill-branded loaf on his head on the anniversary of the Kingsmill massacre - an IRA atrocity which saw 10 Protestant workmen lined up and shot by gunmen.

Earlier this month Mr McElduff, who has always maintained that he not realise the date and denied it was intended to offend, revealed he will also stand as a candidate for the upcoming council elections - just 11 months after he quit as MP in the wake of the Kingsmill the controversy.

Ms Cahill has been an outspoken critic of how Sinn Fein handled her allegations that she was sexually abused by a member of the IRA as a teenager.

"What she has tweeted about Ann was despicable," said Ms Cahill.

She also condemned a tweet by Ms Kelly three years ago when she told another user to "dry up and blow away" after they described what happened to Belfast mother-of-10 Jean McConville - who was abducted, killed and secretly buried by the IRA in 1972 - as an "act of murder" and not an "act of war".

Ms Cahill said the tweets required attention from Sinn Fein president Mary-Lou McDonald, asking: "Does (she) stand by the content of these tweets?"

In response, a Sinn Fein spokesperson said: "It will be for the electorate of Mid Tyrone to decide who will represent them."

Belfast Telegraph