Sinn Féin mayor of Belfast makes Armistice Day history
Máirtín Ó Muilleoir says breaking boycott of event associated with British military was his most difficult political decision
Máirtín Ó Muilleoir, the Sinn Féin mayor of Belfast, has made history by attending an Armistice Day commemoration.
Ó Muilleoir stood alongside the Democratic Unionist deputy mayor, Christopher Stalford, during the two-minute silence for the war dead at Belfast city hall on Monday.
Sinn Féin has previously boycotted November’s remembrance events in Northern Ireland due to the association with the British military, although past mayors have laid wreaths at the city hall cenotaph to mark the 1 July anniversary of the Battle of the Somme.
Afterwards, Ó Muilleoir said he was fulfilling a pledge he made on taking office to be a mayor “for all the people of Belfast”.
“Part of that means reaching out to unionism and today really was about peacemaking towards unionism,” he said. “I think it’s the most difficult decision I have made in 30 years in politics and community activism. It is a challenge and I think that it had to be done. I think building the peace and building a better Belfast demands that we have to move ourselves into places where we are uncomfortable, which challenge us and which move us into new positions of peacemaking.”
