{"id":644303,"date":"2026-08-18T21:46:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T21:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/644303\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T21:46:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T21:46:10","slug":"president-connolly-to-meet-sister-of-troubles-victim-who-criticised-photo-with-ira-gang-member","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/644303\/","title":{"rendered":"President Connolly to meet sister of Troubles victim who criticised photo with IRA gang member"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>CATHERINE CONNOLLY HAS agreed to meet with Ann Travers, whose sister Mary was killed by the IRA in 1984.<\/p>\n<p>The president was recently photographed with Mary McArdle, the only person convicted of the murder, while at a press event at a women\u2019s centre on the Falls Road in Belfast.<\/p>\n<p>McArdle was given a life sentence, but was released after serving 14 years, as per the terms of the Belfast Agreement.<\/p>\n<p>Travers expressed her \u201cupset\u201d at Connolly \u201cstanding smiling\u201d for a photograph with McArdle, saying the backdrop of a woman\u2019s shelter was \u201cironic\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/opinion\/2026\/08\/15\/ann-travers-to-see-the-woman-convicted-of-my-sisters-murder-with-president-connolly-broke-me\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">In an op-ed for the Irish Times<\/a>, Travers wrote: \u201cTo see [McArdle] standing alongside our President broke me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Travers lamented that those responsible for the violence of The Troubles are now \u201caccepted and welcome into normal society\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Connolly\u2019s office today emailed Travers to say the president \u201cwould be glad\u201d to meet her to discuss her concerns.<\/p>\n<p>Travers said she was \u201cdelighted\u201d, and hopes for a positive outcome from the conversation, which she expects will take place in September.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CATHERINE CONNOLLY HAS agreed to meet with Ann Travers, whose sister Mary was killed by the IRA in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644304,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[41],"tags":[272618,663,9,10,1921,13,14,6,9619,11,12,15,16,272619,238967,5,18479,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":["post-644303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-ann-travers","tag-belfast","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-catherine-connolly","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-ira","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-mary-mcardle","tag-mary-travers","tag-news","tag-the-troubles","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-world","tag-world-news","tag-worldnews"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117118709649230230","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}