John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn, by Rwendland.
As many people expected, the election campaign has brought rigorous scrutiny of Jeremy Corbyn's past statements on Ireland, as well as those of his shadow chancellor, John McDonnell. Both are London MPs with close links to the Irish community in the city, particularly significant in Corbyn's constituency of Islington North.
For some years it was my job as political editor, and then executive editor of the London-based Irish World to chronicle the political life of that community. As a result, I had some involvement with the kind of stories that are now filtering into national press cuttings and Tory opposition research. In 2003, I asked one of our freelancers, Paul Donovan, to cover the Bloody Sunday Commemoration where John McDonnell made his oft-quoted comments about the need 'to honour IRA members'.
