3 days ago
Anti-immigration movement split over ex-UVF man's speech at Dublin's GPO
Armed robber Mark Sinclair addressed a rally at Dublin's GPO last weekend
Armed robber Mark Sinclair addressed a rally at Dublin's GPO last weekend – the building regarded as a shrine by republicans as it the headquarters of the 1916 Easter Rising – spouting his anti-immigrant views.
One woman passer-by who saw him said: 'Pádraig Pearse would be spinning in his grave.'
Sinclair – who was jailed for 17 years in Scotland for bank robbing – is the cousin of notorious Shankill Butcher Billy Moore, who was jailed for 11 gruesome sectarian murders.
But yesterday one prominent anti-immigration faction warned the top loyalist to keep well away from any future Dublin rallies.
Three weeks ago the Sunday World revealed that Sinclair had been broadcasting live on his YouTube channel from a protest in Limerick.
A Dublin councillor who is prominent in the campaign for tougher laws on immigration said yesterday that it was a disgrace that Sinclair spoke at the GPO rally.
Former UVF man Mark Sinclair who spoke at a far right rally in Dublin outside the GPO
Councillor Malachy Steenson told us: 'Former UVF prisoner Mark Sinclair spoke at the rally and he encouraged other loyalists to attend as many rallies as possible.
'Sinclair is a convicted bank robber and a self-confessed former member of the UVF.
'He has a close family connection to the Shankill Butchers gang, who gruesomely murdered Catholics over a period of years.
'Sinclair has attended a number of nationalist rallies in the Republic and I strongly condemn that.
'The organiser of this event was warned by myself and other prominent figures to disassociate from this individual and end her toxic and embarrassing relationship with loyalists.'
The Sunday World has learned Sinclair's presence at rallies south of the border has split the anti-immigration movement, with many activists calling to have him banned. However, it is not just a section of anti-immigration campaigners who have said Sinclair is not welcome.
Dublin community activist Joe Mooney, a well-known anti-racism campaigner, said: 'I don't want to see anyone with a racist or anti-immigrant profile being welcomed on the streets of Dublin or anywhere else in Ireland.
Former UVF man Mark Sinclair
'I mean people like Mark Sinclair belonged to an organisation which bombed the streets of this city. These people should refrain from attending marches on the streets of Dublin. I was only a kid when Dublin was bombed by the UVF, but I remember the terror and the horror of what these people did.
'The UVF knew that those streets would be filled with workers on their way home.
'To think those people set out to kill as many people as they could on the streets of Dublin and Monaghan. And to think that today they would find some sort of status on the streets of Dublin is absolutely reprehensible.
'I'm involved with Dublin Communities Against Racism and I've spent a long time as a community activist and I deal with lots of issues.
'I don't believe its racist to ask questions about immigration. But when you take to the street and march or abuse people with dark-coloured skin that's completely and utterly wrong.'
Dublin Communities Against Racism also hit out at Sinclair's presence at the GPO rally, saying it exposed the links between what it called 'Irish racists' and loyalists.
It said: 'Dublin Communities Against Racism takes this opportunity to highlight the links between these anti-Irish bigots and the fake 'patriot' racists.'
Referring to the UVF attacks on Dublin during the Troubles, it said: 'In 2024 and 2025, loyalists came to Dublin, this time invited and welcomed by racists and anti-immigrant campaigners.
'How times have changed, and shockingly so.
'Irish racists have long worked closely with loyalist terror supporters and extreme unionist and British fascist figures, going as far back as the 1930s. What all of their friends have in common is that they are violently anti-Irish and always have been.
Mark Sinclair
'This anti-Irish and sectarian hatred has not gone away, but is conveniently covered up to unite and together target asylum seekers, immigrants and other foreign (and foreign-looking) people. Their anti-Irish hatred is not far beneath the surface.
'In recent weeks, some anti-immigrant and racist right figures have issued statements claiming to 'disassociate' themselves from loyalist figures.
'We do not accept this as genuine. This response is only due to the backlash created by the exposure and highlighting of these links.'
Sinclair's cousin Billy was the man who kept the Shankill Butchers' murder machine oiled when 'Master Butcher' Lenny Murphy was taken off the streets and jailed on firearms charges.
Jailing Moore for life, Judge Turlough O'Donnell told him: 'You Moore pleaded guilty to 11 murders carried out in a manner so cruel and revolting, as to be beyond the comprehension of any normal human being.'
His cousin Mark Sinclair – from Kilburn Street off Belfast's staunchly loyalist Donegall Road – was sent down for 17 years for a series of robberies in Scotland.
Sinclair – who now uses the social media title 'Freedom Dad' – carried out the bank heists in Ayrshire and Dumfries & Galloway. And he was scooped by police hiding out in Moore's rented flat in Edinburgh.
At his trial at the High Court in Ayr, Sinclair told the judge he had been recruited by MI5 to carry out surveillance on Scottish groups sympathetic to Ulster loyalism in Northern Ireland.
Mark Sinclair
