A Sinn Fein minister has decided to avoid the name “Northern Ireland” and will be referring to it as “here” or “the North” in official communiqués.

Conor Murphy, regional development minister in the power-sharing executive, who served a five-year jail term for weapons possession and Provisional IRA membership, has also told his civil servants to avoid calling the Republic of Ireland by its proper name. Mr Murphy, wants his staff to describe it as “all Ireland” or “across the island of Ireland”, according to a memorandum seen by the News Letter newspaper.

It was leaked to the Democratic Unionist MP Gregory Campbell. In a sign that the honeymoon of his party and Sinn Fein – after the May 8 “Stormont marriage” of the Rev Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness – is drawing to a close, Mr Campbell described the stance as “puerile, infantile and pathetic”. Mr Campbell said that “in a previous life” Mr Murphy had fought and lost to abolish Northern Ireland but now that he was in office under the Crown and drawing a British salary he appeared to be trying to deny the existence of the country in which he holds office.

“It is absurd to talk of the country to the south and west as ‘all Ireland’, even though they don’t refer to their own country in such terms,” Mr Campbell said. “Conor Murphy would appear not just to need further lessons on how democracy works but on how geography and the real world operate.” Malin Head, in the Republic, was north of the Province.

Mr Murphy said that he had given guidance to his department about what was said in his name. Every minister, he said, was “asked for guidance in relation to what language they are comfortable with”.

“I gave my guidance – I didn’t issue any directive to staff about what terminology they have to use in relation to their own work. It was simply guidance as to what I’m comfortable with when I’m making speeches or issuing statements in my name.”

In other signs of tension, arguments loom over “parity of esteem” in the use of symbols at Stormont, with its statue of Sir Edward Carson, the founder of Northern Ireland. Sinn Fein may seek a statue of the IRA hunger-striker Bobby Sands, for instance, and the flying of the tricolour to match days upon which the Union Jack is flown. Last week the DUP said it would veto moves to give legal status to the Gaelic language – part of the agreement on which the executive is built.

After the Republic’s election, Sinn Fein may no longer feel as dutybound to treat the DUP with kid-gloves. During the campaign Gerry Adams has made much of the new relationship. Yet if it wants the Province to control policing and justice, it must continue to work with the DUP; responsibility is to be devolved next year.

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