At the annual commemoration of veteran Derry republican, Sean Keenan, Kildare-based Republican Sinn Féin Vice President Des Dalton accused mainstream Sinn Fein leaders of "drip feeding innuendo and lies in an attempt to criminalise Irish republicans".

"The Provos are preparing the ground for a wave of coercion directed at those who refuse to collaborate with or accept British occupation," he said.

"The Provos are calling on people to become informers by passing information to the British colonial police of the RUC/PSNI. They try to pretend to do so now is somehow different from the past. Informing or touting remains what it has always been, treachery and a shameful betrayal of the Irish nation.

"Our message to the Provisionals and their masters in Westminster, Stormont or Leinster House, is: just like Sean Keenan we will never accept British rule in Ireland and the only pledge we make to British rule in Ireland is our eternal hostility to it."

Wreaths were laid on behalf of the Leadership of the Republican Movement by RSF Director of Publicity, Richard Walsh from Derry, and on behalf of Comhairle Uladh (Ulster RSF Executive) by An Rúnaí (Secretary) Nuala Moore. Seán Keenan's daughter, Róisín Barton, also laid a wreath on behalf of the Keenan family.

A decade of the Rosary was then recited as Gaeilge by Seánín Brady from Dungiven. Derry-based RSF PRO Richard Walsh read the 1916 Proclamation.