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POLICE INVESTIGATING A security alert which led to Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney being evacuated from a peace event have carried out a search of a house in Belfast.
Officers have also arrested a 33-year-old man under the Terrorism Act over the incident.
A PSNI spokesman said detectives searched a residential property in the Forthriver area of north Belfast this morning.
Coveney had to leave the event organised by the John and Pat Hume Foundation in north Belfast on 25 March.
The Houben Centre in the Crumlin Road was evacuated and a funeral service at nearby Holy Cross Church was disrupted.
Police said the driver of a van was threatened by two gunmen and forced to drive a device, which he believed to be a live bomb, to the church.
Speaking in Dublin this week, Coveney said he really felt for the people in the room.
“It was part of an event that was all about reconciliation and healing and communities coming together,” he said.
“There were unionists, there were nationalists. There were people from all different backgrounds and communities in Northern Ireland at that meeting.
“It was the Pat and John Hume Foundation, it was their first public in-person meeting as a foundation, and it was a real honour for me to be asked to speak, even though I didn’t get a chance to deliver the full speech.
“The speech was all about tolerance, recognition of difference, respect between communities for people who have different understandings of history and very different dreams and aspirations for the future of this island.
“So it was disappointing and sad for me that, for the first time in a very long time, an event like that had to be abruptly halted because of a very genuine and real security threat.”
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What did she die of? She died of a Thursday. Lucky to live so long and with no suffering in the end. What a way to go …
Obviously was a very strong lady who was working right to the end and having read a number of very funny stories about the many things that she did and her funny character side she seemed like a very normal lady behind it all
Really who cares.
@Ciaran O Moore: let me be the first to say it….”you care enough to comment” :)
@Ciaran O Moore: a great many people, which is why it’s international news.
@Ciaran O Moore: future historians
@Ciaran O Moore: I think we all prefer a bit of Ciaran O Less
@HarveyLemonade: brilliant!
@Ciaran O Moore: Charles I’d say. He was afraid she’d outlive him.
So what! We kind of worked it out anyway. The English news was extended from 5 o’clock in the evening earlier than normal and a family of human beings had time to grieve for an hour or two before the media went crazy so what!
@Anne Marie Kearney: Sad human response!
I’d say it was the papparazi.
The certificate was signed by Dr F. Obvious.
All i see is that we were robbed of three extra hours of absolute solid hardcore wall-to-wall mourning. I will never forget the Brits for this over anything else. How very dare they.
Would she have known she was going to die?
have your say