‘Viable explosive device’ outside Sinn Féin office in Newry made safe

By Rebecca Black, PA

A viable explosive device outside a Sinn Féin office in Newry has been made safe, police said.

The alarm was raised in the Monaghan Street area just before midnight on Sunday.

Army bomb experts attended the scene and made safe and removed the device, which has been described as a “viable explosive device”.

The premises is used by Newry and Armagh MP Daire Hughes and Infrastructure Minister Liz Kimmins as a constituency office. It was previously used by Mickey Brady, a former MP for Newry and Armagh from 2015 to 2024.

Mr Hughes said the incident will not deter him and his colleagues, describing a “disgraceful and cowardly attack on democracy and the community in Newry”.

“Whoever was behind this attack, they will not succeed and we will not be intimidated, we will get back to the work that we have to do to represent the people of Newry, and the office will be open for business this morning,” he told BBC Radio Ulster.

“It’s been a massive shock, a disgraceful and cowardly attack on a constituency office which provides an essential service to the people of Newry.

“The wider dimension to this is that this was an attack on democracy, an attack on Sinn Fein, but we’ll not be intimidated, we will not be deterred, we will continue to do our work, we will continue to advance forward.

“The people responsible won’t hold us back, won’t bring us back and we’ll continue to represent the community to the best of our ability without hesitation.”

Mr Hughes urged that anyone with any information about the incident brings it to the PSNI as soon as they can.

A police spokesperson said officers are grateful to local people for their patience while they worked to make the area safe.

“An investigation is now under way and detectives would ask anyone with information, or who may have captured dashcam or CCTV footage from the area which could help with their investigation, to call them at Ardmore on the non-emergency number 101, quoting reference number 1648 05/10/25,” they said.