Michelle O’Neill attends republican Easter commemoration

Michelle O’Neill has attended her first republican Easter commemoration in Northern Ireland since taking up office as first minister.

She addressed a crowd of about 50 at the republican plot in Coalisland graveyard in County Tyrone.

She said they had come together to remember “all of those who have struggled for our freedom”.

“We honour the sacrifices that were made by those during Easter week of 1916, but also in every generation before and since,” she said.

“Ordinary people born in extraordinary times, and today we’re very mindful and thoughtful of all the families of those that have lost and we’re particularly thinking of you all today. Everybody has a right to respectfully remember their dead.”

The Sinn Féin vice president attended a formal Irish state event in Dublin last year marking the 1916 rebellion, which was an attempt to overthrow British rule in Ireland.

She is expected to attend it again on Easter Sunday.

O’Neill also told those gathered in Coalisland that “we stand at a pivotal moment in history”, adding “we are in the end days of partition”.

She said a united Ireland was no longer merely a dream and reiterated a call for a border poll by 2030.