By Michael Breslin
The intense rivalry between Sinn Féin and Republican Sinn Féin that has surfaced in recent weeks was in evidence at two separate Easter 1916 commemorations in Roslea where wreaths were laid at the grave of three local Republicans who were hanged in Enniskillen Gaol in 1797.
Martin McGuinness spoke at Sunday's Sinn Féin commemoration.
His description of those opposed to the Stormont government as 'traitors' attracted graffiti on gable walls. There was a low-key but visible Police presence.
By contrast, Monday's Republican Sinn Féin (RSF) commemoration was accompanied by a huge Police presence, both on the ground and in the air. The event organisers were warned by a Police Inspector that a parade along the main road into the graveyard would not be allowed.
Instead, the RSF parade took place in the grounds of the graveyard.
The split between the two groups was articulated in the two orations.
Mr McGuinness, who is the Deputy First Minister at Stormont, told the sizeable gathering they were there as Irish Republicans, and recalled his own active part in the struggle.
"I am proud I was a member of a group of young people in my generation who struggled and fought against the British Army and the RUC and who, as a result of that, brought about the enormous political changes of recent times."
He applauded the leaders of 1916 and, said while the Republic they sought had not yet been achieved, 'we also know we have the ability to achieve it'.
He then turned to the 'dissenting' voices, describing them as, 'a tiny group of people within the broad nationalist community who believe that the best way forward is to plunge the North back to what we have seen in the past'.
"For me, this makes no sense whatsoever because their strategy is about returning to the streets of Fermanagh and the rest of Northern Ireland and the tens of thousands of British soldiers that we managed through negotiation to get rid of. I don't accept their approach."
By contrast, John Joe McCusker, who gave the oration at the Republican Sinn Féin commemoration the following day was equally resolute.
He told a much smaller attendance: "Yesterday, a representative of the government that was responsible for the execution of these our martyred dead, stood in this graveyard in defence of the Good Friday Agreement which underpins the continuity of the British occupation in Ireland.
"He is an imposter. A Judas goat. The establishment of a two-nation mentality which is being pursued by the British and the Free State government does not incline me to think that the present process will lead to the All-Ireland Republic for which so many have sacrificed their lives.
"Rights are seen by the British imperialists a concessions to the weak in order to gain advantage. These concessions can be removed again when the advantage has been consumed. The Irish people should realise that British imperialism has an insatiable appetite."
Mr McCusker said it continued to deal with constitutional nationalism with the same temperament as an adolescent boy poking a dead rat with a stick, 'in wonderment and disdain, knowing full well that the creature is dead and cannot react'.
Concluding, he stated that a national consensus was missing and that, on that basis, solid-thinking nationalists and republicans should declare themselves out. And, he said the Republican Movement would see of the treachery, 'that has been visited upon us by Adams and McGuinness'.
"This country is going to be free. The British are not going to be allowed to stay."
