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Robert McCartney slimed a Northern Virginia Catholic priest in a Sunday column in the Washington Post for his decision to end his parish's relationship with the Boy Scouts for letting openly-homosexual youth to join as scouts. McCartney blasted Father John De Celles, pastor of St. Raymond of Peñafort parish in Springfield, for his supposed "diatribes against gay behavior, liberal activists and similar targets in his weekly columns." The columnist later touted how "De Celles is in the minority" in disbanding his parish's Cub Scout pack and Boy Scout troop, and bringing in an alternative youth group that "discriminates against boys...

BELFAST, Northern Ireland - A Belfast man was charged Friday in the IRA-linked knife slaying of a Catholic man outside a pub earlier this year, the first breakthrough in a case that has overshadowed Northern Ireland's peace process for months. A 49-year-old man will face a charge of murdering Robert McCartney, while a 36-year-old man will be charged with the attempted murder of his friend Brendan Devine, who was seriously wounded in the Jan. 30 attack, police said. The arraignment was set for Saturday in Belfast Crown Court. McCartney's sisters - who have taken their campaign to the White House...

Two arrested over murder of Robert McCartney TWO men have been arrested in connection with the murder of Belfast father-of-two Robert McCartney, police said today. The men, aged 36 and 49, were arrested following police operations in Belfast and Birmingham. Mr McCartney, 33, died after he was attacked outside Magennis's Bar in Belfast city centre on January 30. His sister, Catherine McCartney, welcomed the news. She said: "We obviously welcome these arrests but remain cautious. People have been arrested before and let out. Others have walked into police stations, stared at walls and said nothing." The IRA expelled three members...

Police in Belfast tonight warned the family of Robert McCartney, the murdered father of two, of threats from “criminal elements” to have them burnt out of their homes and business. Catherine McCartney revealed she and her four sisters Paula, Gemma, Claire, Donna and Bridgeen Hagans were told of the threat tonight. “They told us that the threat to burn us out of our homes and to burn down Donna’s business came from criminal elements,” she confirmed. Police visited the homes of the McCartney sisters just days after the European Parliament backed moves to secure funding from the EU for a...

A sister of murdered Belfast man Robert McCartney has said she was threatened at her home in the Short Strand area. Paula McCartney said a woman told her she would be put out of the area. The family also said they had to stop handing out leaflets about a vigil in her brother's memory when they were confronted by about a dozen people. Mr McCartney, 33, was stabbed after a row in a Belfast bar. The IRA has been blamed for the murder and interference with evidence and witnesses. The family said Mr McCartney's partner, Bridgeen Hagans, was also told...

BACK in Ireland, a vicious whispering campaign has begun against Robert McCartney’s partner and five sisters. Scotland on Sunday can reveal that the women returned from Washington at the end of last week to an increasingly hostile atmosphere as republicans mounted a campaign of misinformation and vilification. According to residents in Belfast, the onslaught is being led by Sinn Fein members who have suggested the sisters are being used by the British government or the SDLP to damage Sinn Fein and the IRA. This includes unfounded claims that the family’s trip to the United States was funded by either government...

Murder victim's sisters return to more hostile climate in Belfast The McCartney family's trip to the US is part of a wider plot to harm Sinn Féin, some republicans allege Angelique Chrisafis, Ireland correspondent Saturday March 19, 2005 The Guardian On the radio phone-ins, the barometer of Northern Ireland's bottomless pit of moral outrage, some republican voices have raged about the plot to destroy their movement. The McCartney sisters were making "a complete political issue" of their brother's killing by IRA members, one said. American Teresa McShane was affronted, having not had a shred of help from her own government...

IT WAS GOOD not to see Gerry Adams at the White House yesterday. Not to have to watch as the leader of the free world exchanged pleasantries and shamrock with the Hibernian branch of the International Brotherhood of bin Ladens and Zarqawis. Not to have to listen as that charmless brogue touchingly recommitted itself to the promotion of peace and justice for all. Not to have to turn away in disgust at the whole grisly exercise in hypocrisy and cant and shamelessness. For years the raucous St Patrick’s Day parades in America’s big cities have been upstaged by the much...

President Bush welcomed St. Patrick's Day visitors to the White House today, including Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern. The President also welcomed the fiancée and two sisters of Robert McCartney, a Catholic man who was killed in a January bar brawl in Dublin. Also today, the President nominated Congressman Rob Portman to be the next U.S. Trade Representative. Enjoy your daily dose of Dubya!

The family of IRA murder victim Robert McCartney today dismissed Sinn Féin's warning that they are in danger of being used as political pawns. Catherine McCartney, who left Dublin this morning with her four sisters and Mr McCartney's financee for a meeting later this week with US President George Bush, responded to the warning by saying that they were not stupid. "We have to be very careful that we're not being used by anybody and that includes Sinn Féin and all political parties, we're not stupid women," Ms McCartney said. "We get the impression that someone thinks out there that...

Sinn Fein Leader Criticizes Family of Slain Belfast Man As Party Makes New Admission Mar. 14, 2005 - A Sinn Fein leader publicly criticized the family of a Catholic man killed by IRA members, warning Monday that their relentless campaign for an arrest in his death could diminish support for their cause. The comments from Sinn Fein's deputy leader, Martin McGuinness, came as the party admitted that another of its candidates was in the pub where Irish Republican Army members launched the fatal assault on Robert McCartney.A campaign by McCartney's five sisters to have his killers brought to justice has...

Standing up against the IRA Thousands have been killed in sectarian strife in Northern Ireland and thousands of families have mourned, but it may be the death of one man and the courage of his family that mark a turning point among people who had heretofore been IRA supporters - or, by their coerced silence, IRA enablers. The sisters of Robert McCartney live in a Catholic enclave in Belfast, the sort of neighborhood where, if you do not back the IRA and Sinn Fein (make no mistake, they are one and the same), you at least do not defy them....

Inside the McCartney family house there are two constant noises - the dull ring of the telephone and the background chatter of a 24-hour news channel. For the McCartney sisters, it all feels unreal. What is even more surreal is when their pictures appear on the TV, on the hour every hour. "Sometimes I wonder to myself 'is this all really happening?'," says Claire, the youngest of the five sisters. But this is not a dream, it is a recurring nightmare. The McCartney sisters have lost two brothers in the space of four years. First Gerard aged 28, then Robert,...

At last the light is shone on the IRA Kevin Myers (Filed: 13/03/2005) No event in Northern Ireland in recent years has distilled the abominable and corrupted reality of life under the peace process as the murder of Robert McCartney. Half beaten to death, one eye gouged out, his throat cut, and then gutted like a fish, he was left to die while his IRA killers returned to the pub from which they had flushed him, to warn the customers there of the fate awaiting them if they informed. Then making off with the cassette from the CCTV, they proceeded...

Leading Irish-American politician Ted Kennedy says he will not meet Gerry Adams during the Sinn Fein leader's St Patrick's Day trip to the US. It comes as Sinn Fein faces increasing pressure over IRA involvement in the killing of Robert McCartney in Belfast. A spokeswoman for Senator Kennedy said he had cancelled a meeting planned for Thursday in light of the "ongoing criminal activity" of the IRA. Mr Adams has also been denied a meeting with President Bush at the White House. Instead, Mr Bush will play host to Mr McCartney's sisters. Mr Adams will face tough questions in the...

BELFAST, Northern Ireland (Reuters) -- The United States has demanded that the IRA disband after the guerrilla group's astonishing offer to shoot the killers of a murdered Northern Ireland Catholic man. "It's time for the IRA to go out of business," U.S. special envoy Mitchell Reiss said Wednesday. For the IRA's political ally Sinn Fein, Northern Ireland's biggest Irish nationalist party, the U.S. demand was yet another blow to its democratic credentials. Reiss told BBC radio: "It's time for Sinn Fein to be able to say explicitly, without ambiguity, without ambivalence, that criminality will not be tolerated. "You can't sign...

Had it not been triggered by the atrocious murder of yet another blameless young man, there would be something thoroughly delicious about the predicament that Sinn Fein-IRA are now in. For this is the moment many of us have been hoping for since the ignoble compromises of the peace process became a full-time industry. This is the crisis which shows the true reality of Sinn Fein-IRA. Faced with the unmitigated wrath of the sisters of Robert McCartney, who was beaten to death by a Sinn Fein-IRA gang five weeks ago, the movement is behaving like an android whose wiring has...

Sinn Fein suspended seven of its members last night as the crisis facing the party after the IRA's murder of Robert McCartney intensified. The party said the men would be expelled if it was found that they had taken any part in the killing or subsequent forensic cover-up at Magennis's bar in central Belfast, or did not give "truthful accounts". Gerry Adams said in a statement that he had been to see Mr McCartney's five sisters, who had given him a list of those allegedly involved in last month's killing, seven of whom were party members. Speaking on the eve...