Gardaí investigating 'sinister' graffiti targeting Sinn Féin with threats to 'hang traitors'

Gardai are investigating threatening graffiti that featured a gun sight crosshairs, as well as intimidating language aimed at Sinn Féin.

The graffiti was found sprayed onto a wall at a housing estate in Waterford city on Tuesday, and was highlighted by Waterford DJ Damien Tiernan.

The graffiti featured the words "KILL SHINERS" in one location, and in another said "HANG TRAITORS". A drawing of a 'gun sight' crosshairs was also spray-painted next to both of these phrases.

It was reported that the graffiti was sprayed onto a wall at the Grange Manor housing estate.

Sinn Féin spokesperson on Health and local TD David Cullinane told Waterford Local Radio (WLR) that the graffiti was a "sinister development", and a "vicious attempt" to intimidate his party and working-class communities, and added that it wouldn't be tolerated.

Gardaí in Waterford is also investigating if the symbol is a gunsight or is a white supremacist symbol. According to Cullinane, CCTV in the area is being checked as part of the investigation by the Gardai.

Local Green Party Councillor Cristíona Kiely described the graffiti as "another new low".

"This graffiti in Waterford is sinister and intimidating for the people it's meant to target and for everyone who has to see it," she added in a post on social media.

The graffiti is the latest in a series of tags aimed at the party, with Gardaí also alerted on Tuesday to hateful slogans that appeared next to Mary Lou McDonald’s Sinn Féin constituency office in Dublin.

"Mary Lou is a traitor," said one of pieces of yellow graffiti daubed on the site of the old Cabra House pub at Fassaugh Avenue in Cabra. Other prominent messages, believed to have been spray-painted on Sunday night, read "Sinn Féin is scum" and featured far-right slogans including "Irish Lives Matter".