Anti-gay ex-IRA man Gerry McGeough punched at Pride parade to protest at new LGBTQ event in Omagh – Belfast Telegraph

Mr McGeough, a former Sinn Fein ard chomhairle member, told the Irish Society for Christian Civilisation: “It is time for us Catholics to stand up, not be afraid, get out and pray and go forward.

“Our ancestors endured dungeon, fire and sword to keep the faith alive in this country. All we’re asking is go out and pray a rosary.

“OK, we may get punched in the face sometimes, but that’s nothing to being thrown in a bonfire or hung, drawn and quartered. But who knows, it may come to that in future and, if it does, we’re ready.”

Mr McGeough (63) was assaulted last Saturday as he stood with eight men praying and holding a statue of the Virgin Mary as an LGBTQ march made its way through Cookstown.

The PSNI said a 44-year-old woman was arrested on suspicion of common assault following an incident in James Street. She was released pending a report to the PPS.

Mr McGeough said he hoped his assault would be “a turnaround in the mentality of people” who had been “cowed down by the whole homosexual agenda … the abortion issue, contraception… everything that is essentially anti-Catholic”.

The former Provo said he had suffered a heart attack hours after he was attacked but, if his “health permitted”, he would be in Omagh on Saturday.

“We will be there praying a rosary of reparation for the offence given to God,” he said. “If we get punched, we get punched. But, hey, we’ll get great graces for it. We’ll turn this country back into the Catholic country that it should be — the land of saints and scholars.”

Poets, musicians, drag artists and a range of speakers will take part in Omagh Pride.

Organisers Cat Brogan and Lorraine Montague have lived most of their adult lives outside the town but returned home due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

It is understood a representative of the PSNI’s LGBT+ network will address the crowd.

Ms Brogan told the Ulster Herald: “Omagh Pride shows people they can be who they are in their hometown.

“It proves the community accepts them. It will form and strengthen connections based on compassion and empathy while sending everyone the message that LGBTQ people are loved – wholly and unconditionally.”

The event will be livestreamed. Ulster Unionist North Belfast Assembly candidate Julie-Anne Corr-Johnston has voiced her support for the event.

She said it was “a protest to reclaim rights and freedoms”.

“My colleagues and I will travel from various parts of Northern Ireland to stand in solidarity with Omagh Pride,” she said. In another Facebook video, Carrickmore man Sean Canavan, who now lives in England, said the event was historic.

“I used to have good times in Omagh but I had to move away obviously because of the gay thing. In Omagh at that time back in ’94 it wasn’t a cool thing, it wasn’t a good thing to be.

“I was one of those people who had to move away to be myself. But then I saw Pride come up and I was so, so, so proud. It’s an amazing feeling just to know that Omagh is having its own Pride parade.”

In 2011 Mr McGeough, from Branty in Co Tyrone, became the first republican jailed for historic offences since the Good Friday Agreement.

He was convicted of the 1981 attempted murder of part-time UDR man Sammy Brush 30 years earlier. He was released in 2013.

In 1988 Mr McGeough was charged with attacks on the British Army in the Rhine and held in Germany for four years. He was then extradited to the US, where he served three years in jail for attempting to buy surface-to-air missiles in 1983.

He was deported to the Republic in 1996. He became a prominent Sinn Fein figure and was national director of its ‘No To Nice’ campaign.