Hardline Loyalist MP Gregory Campbell has jokingly compared Celtic’s fixture in Gibraltar with the murder of three IRA members in 1988.
The Democratic Unionist Party MP for Londonderry East has a long track record of criticising the tax paying champions of Scotland but has overstepped the mark with his latest attack which has already been condemned by Sinn Fein.
Using his facebook account Campbell said: “Someone told me that Celtic are due to play on the 12th, in Gibraltar. That info was ok but wasn’t sure what he meant when he hoped that it wouldn’t be like the last time Irish Republican sympathisers went to Gibraltar and lost.”
Defending those comments on the Stephen Nolan’s BBC Radio Show Campbell said: “Someone told me that Celtic were playing on the Twelfth of July which I thought was ironic. When they told me they were playing in Gibraltar, I thought that was even more ironic.
“The fact is an IRA gang went out to Gibraltar to kill members of the British Army and when they were shot dead by the SAS, their devices, ammunitions and explosives were recovered.
“This was 28 years ago and you’d wonder why some would want to make an issue of it now then wouldn’t you.
“Those people died as a result of being sent out there and now because it’s 28-years later there is a reference made by me about this football match being played where it took place and some that support the football club that are going would revel in Irish republican activity.”
