Hollywood actor Stephen Rea has carried his former wife Dolours Price’s coffin at her Belfast funeral.
But Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams stayed away as Republicans paid their respects to the former IRA hunger striker.
Old Bailey bomber Price was found dead after a suspected overdose at her Dublin home last week.
Crying Game star and Northern Ireland born Rea was married to Price for 17 years.
He carried the coffin along with their two sons as her body left St Agnes’s church in Andersonstown before her burial at Milltown cemetery.
Sinn Fein President Adams was a notable absentee from the funeral.
The former MP for West Belfast, now a deputy for Louth in the Irish parliament, had clashed with Price on a number of political issues in recent years.
Price was a constant critic of the direction Sinn Fein was taking under Adams’s leadership and accused him of ‘selling out.’
The Guardian newspaper reports that she had also claimed in several media interviews that Adams was her IRA commander when she was ordered to drive the mother-of-10 Jean McConville to her death at a secret location over the border in the Irish Republic in 1972.
Adams has vehemently denied any role in the death and disappearance of the widow and has denied he was ever in the IRA.
Price’s sister Marian was unable to attend the funeral as she is currently in prison on charges of alleged dissident republican activity.
The Price sisters were jailed for their part in the 1973 Old Bailey bombing in which one man died of a heart attack after helping to clear the area.
Over 200 people were injured in the explosion which marked the start of the provisional IRA’s bombing campaign in Britain.
The Price sisters were convicted for their part in the bombing. They went on hunger strike and were force-fed as they sought to be relocated to Northern Ireland.
The sisters were eventually transferred to Armagh women’s jail.
Prison chaplain Father Raymond Murray addressed mourners at the funeral.
He told them, “Dolours and her sister were like twins. Dolours’s family can relate her nature and her talent, both of which is outside the knowledge and understanding of those who did not know her personally.
“She was clever and witty, full of fun and held people enthralled by her conversation.”
Dolours Price was also one of the contributors who gave detailed testimony to Boston College’s Belfast project, which archives the memoirs of key republicans and loyalists during the Troubles.
Founder Ed Moloney and his researcher Anthony McIntyre have declined to release Price’s taped interviews which are the subject of a US Supreme Court battle in the US.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland has asked the courts to release the Boston College material as part of their investigation into the McConville murder.
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Switch to the desktop site to post a comment.seamus60 | Jan 30, 2013, 03:50 AM EST
Woodman. Please keep up, I don`t recall Delours telling people to pass on information to the British in relation to ongoing operations being carried out by soldiers of Ireland. Gerry and Martin on the other hand.
Woodman | Jan 30, 2013, 02:47 AM EST
Adams was correct not to attend the funeral of a bitter woman who collaborated with the British govt to try and jail him. Even if her claims that Adams was her IRA commander were true she should never have said that publicly. It's too bad Price wanted to turn informer before she died.
falconflash | Jan 30, 2013, 01:02 AM EST
Aliciarose, Pope JPII begged children of Ireland to turn away from violence, did Mr I.P. EVER do the same?
anglo-norman | Jan 29, 2013, 11:41 PM EST
Who's coffin was he supposed to carry?
Aliciarose | Jan 29, 2013, 10:32 PM EST
Of course Adams would deny he was the Leader of the IRA. He's a LIAR and a MURDERER and he will go to his grave as one. BUT I am sure some priest will grant him permission at the Pearly Gates to enter. Bloody Hypocrits. Take McGuinness with you.
aloistmartin | Jan 29, 2013, 08:26 PM EST
The way Hollywood has intruded itself upon the Irish Socio-Political scene, Mr. Rea is very Lucky not to Burying one of his own, as a result of Sectarian Violence ~
aloistmartin | Jan 29, 2013, 08:13 PM EST
The way Hollywood has intruded itself upon the Irish Socio-Political scene, Mr. Rea is very Lucky not to Burying one of his own, as a result of Sectarian Violence ~
seamus60 | Jan 29, 2013, 06:50 PM EST
Woundedknee. Fr Faul is on record of warning people to JII8 or the fishermans true intentions at the time of the hunger strikes and as with so many other times we believed the leadership and their anti Faul spin. The energy was being zapped from the RA with every death but unknown to those outside the doves within the Army council, every death was taking us closer to politics as an end game where the chosen few would yet again reap the benefits by way of votes as opposed to fresh vols, the norm up until then.
merefalow | Jan 29, 2013, 02:45 PM EST
they fought and suffered for what they believed in.r.i.p.
WoundedKnee | Jan 29, 2013, 02:37 PM EST
Seamus: I hadn't realized Fr Faul had died until I read your post. He was a fine man too. Some Sinn Feiners tried to spread poison about him because he persuaded the hunger-strikers and especially their families to call off the hunger strike. But wasn't he right? Ten men had already died--another ten, twenty, even fifty could have died and it wouldn't have advanced the cause one inch. I myself think the hunger strike should have been called off after Sands died. I was in Ireland that summer, and you could see the energy being sapped from the movement with every death. Back in the really bad days of the early 1970s Fr Faul and Fr Murray stood with the Nationalist people when their own bishops reneged on them, and they should be remembered for that.
WoundedKnee | Jan 29, 2013, 02:30 PM EST
pilib: There's no need to read Adams' words.
pilib04 | Jan 29, 2013, 02:20 PM EST
Condolences to all of Delours family members and Marian. Gerry Adams TD and President of Sinn Fein, commented: " I am very sad. I have known her for a very long time. For her sons Oscar and Danny there is nothing worse than losing your mother. Dolours was a long time in prison in England, but she also was force-fed for over 200 days...When you consider that, and her own personal trials and tribulations, none of what has occurred in terms of her parting ways with Sinn Fein...should diminish, at all, her life."
seamus60 | Jan 29, 2013, 01:41 PM EST
Rest in peace brave Delours. They still couldn`t take your mind.Spot on about Fr Raymond Murray, he and the late Fr Dennis Faul deserve applause for their unwavering work in aid of those suffering injustice.
Searlit | Jan 29, 2013, 01:37 PM EST
Beannacht agus sólás a cúram.
WoundedKnee | Jan 29, 2013, 12:54 PM EST
Father Raymond Murray--What a great man. A lifetime of service to the Nationalist people of the North of Ireland. If only all Catholic priests had been like him the Church would be strong and vibrant in Ireland today.