Mairia Cahill says Sinn Fein’s old HQ should be turned into abuse victims’ centre

And the former Irish senator says Sinn Féin should foot the bill.

Last week it emerged the republican party would be quitting Connolly House on the Andersonstown Road in west Belfast 40 years after they bought it.

It’s understood the party is ready to splash the cash on a new premises after a €4million estate was left to it by English recluse William Hampton five years ago.

Hampton’s express stipulation was that his money be spent “to cover election expenses and to fund Sinn Féin offices and advice centres”.

The party has revealed it will move its political hub out of Connolly House – named after 1916 hero James Connolly – though it’s not clear whether they plan to sell the property immediately.

The iconic building was widely seen as Sinn Féin HQ and was rarely out of the headlines over four decades.

During an anti-internment protest outside the building in 1984, Sean Downes was shot dead with a plastic bullet fired by the RUC.

Connolly House has also been bugged by MI5 and hit with a rocket fired by loyalists.

It has hosted many high-profile press conferences which attracted the world’s media and it was where crowds gathered to celebrate the IRA ceasefire in the 1990s.

It also had a notorious reputation – MI5 agent Martin McGartland claims to have been abducted from it.

More recently, it has had a quieter existence as the constituency office for West Belfast MLA Órlaithí Flynn.

This week, she told the Andersonstown News that the former doctor’s surgery has become rundown and “not fit for purpose”.

Máiría Cahill – who was interrogated by the IRA inside another Sinn Féin office – says the party now has an opportunity to “give something back”.

“They should turn Connolly House into a state-of-the-art victims’ and trauma centre specialising in treating victims of IRA violence,” she told the Sunday World.

“They should fill it with trained counsellors who have no links to republicanism. It could be a proper trauma centre which could do some good after all the hurt the IRA caused over the years.

“We all know they have the finances to pay for it themselves.

“I was interrogated by the IRA inside a Sinn Féin office and it has been reported that others were too. Martin McGartland was abducted by the IRA from within Connolly House.”

Máiría – whose great-uncle Joe Cahill was one of the founding members of the Provos – waived her anonymity in 2014 to reveal she had been sexually abused by a member of the IRA.

Coincidentally, Joe Cahill was one of two veteran republicans Hampton named as the executors of the massive estate he left to Sinn Féin in 2018.

To date, this process has brought in €3.9m for Sinn Féin in Northern Ireland, with more to come. The proceeds have gone to the party in Northern Ireland as there is a ban on foreign donations and tighter political funding laws in the Republic.

If Sinn Féin hit the jackpot with the Hampton legacy, they appear to have got lucky once again with Connolly House.

The planned redevelopment of Casement Park, in time for Euro 2028, means Connolly House – a couple of hundred yards away – is now prime real estate.

Alex Maskey, the former MLA and current speaker of the Assembly, told the Andersonstown News that Connolly House played an important role for the party.

“After the party’s first electoral success in the Assembly election in 1982, we opened an office in Beechmount Avenue,” he said.

“Following more success at the Westminster election, we wanted to open another office and make a statement that we were here to stay.

“We came across Connolly House. We bought the property in 1983 and refurbished it. It became our hub in west Belfast for constituents.”

But Connolly House has had a colourful past with a number of controversies and attacks.

In 1994, Johnny Adair’s Shankill UFF team blasted it with an RPG-7 rocket which wrecked the roof.

A few days later, loyalists launched a gun attack on men building a blast wall to protect the building from another attack, riddling the building with gunfire. Incredibly, nobody was injured.

The death of Sean Downes (22) outside Connolly House was one of the most shocking incidents connected to the building.

He died after being struck by a plastic bullet fired by an RUC officer during an anti-internment rally as the RUC tried to stop former Noraid publicity director Martin Galvin from speaking.

In 2004, Connolly House hit the headlines again when Sinn Féin found a sophisticated bugging device planted by MI5.

Ms Flynn says the time has come to move out.

“The building has become really rundown and is not fit for purpose anymore. There are also parts of the building we are not utilising like the top floor due to very tight stairs,” she said.

“The time is right to move into a more modern and comfortable working space for our team and constituents. Connolly House was our centralised office for many years but we now have very good offices in West Belfast.”