PRESIDENT BUSH praised the family of Robert McCartney as “brave souls” yesterday as the murdered man’s sisters were fêted across Washington on the first day of their visit to the United States.

After Mr Bush said how much he was looking forward to meeting the McCartney family today, guests of honour at the White House’s St Patrick’s Day celebration, the five sisters and the murdered man’s fiancée emerged from a Capitol Hill meeting with the US senators Edward Kennedy and Hillary Clinton, who made clear that Irish-American support for Gerry Adams and Sinn Fein has ended. Formerly sympathetic to Sinn Fein, Mr Kennedy, like Mr Bush, refused to meet Mr Adams during the Sinn Fein leader’s American visit this week. Standing next to Mr McCartney’s sisters and his fiancée Bridgeen Hagans, the Massachusetts senator said that Sinn Fein was now at an “historic crossroads”.

Condemning the January 30 murder of Mr McCartney and the alleged IRA bank robbery in Belfast in December as “despicable acts of criminality”, Mr Kennedy said: “We would certainly hope that the leadership of Sinn Fein, Mr Adams, understand what an albatross the IRA is on them and to peace in Ireland. No political party can also have an armed unit that continues violence and criminality in today’s world.” Mrs Clinton, a New York senator and the former First Lady, said that the peace process in Northern Ireland “cannot go forward unless there is a complete reckoning to the demands of justice in the murder of Robert McCartney”. She added that the sisters “were sending a clear signal that no other person should be murdered and the murderers walk free”.

Catherine, one of the sisters, said that bringing her brother’s murderers to justice was important for her country, because “it will be a clear signal to Northern Ireland that it is achieving peace . . . If these people are brought to account it will be a sign to the people of Northern Ireland that law and order prevails and not men of violence.”

Earlier, the sisters held talks with Mitchell Reiss, Mr Bush’s special envoy to Northern Ireland, before their Oval Office meeting today, where they will hand the President a dossier on their brother’s murder. Also attending will be Bertie Ahern, the Irish Prime Minister.

“I’m looking forward to meeting these brave souls,” Mr Bush said. “They have committed themselves to a peaceful solution (in Northern Ireland) and hopefully their loved one will not have died in vain. It’s very important that people understand that the parties renounce violence.”

After ten years in which Mr Adams and Sinn Fein have been fêted in the US capital, especially during the St Patrick’s Day week celebrations, the souring in mood among the party’s former supporters, triggered by the sister’s decision to speak out against the IRA, has been startling.

Their stated ambition to get influential Irish-American politicians to abandon their romantic view of the armed struggle for Irish unity and to convince then that “the struggle in terms of what it was ten years ago is now over” has succeeded already.

After their talks on Capitol Hill, which were also attended by John McCain, a senior Republican senator and potential presidential candidate in 2008, the family attended the Northern Ireland Bureau’s lunch, which is the presence of the British Government in Washington. There they met Paul Murphy, the Northern Ireland Secretary, and Sir David Manning, the British Ambassador. Mr Adams was not present.

Last night, however, the sisters were due to come face-to-face with Mr Adams, who has been forbidden by the Bush Administration from fundraising this week, at the American-Ireland dinner.

Meanwhile, in Belfast it emerged that a man alleged to have stabbed Mr McCartney was interviewed by police last week and later released. A second man, alleged to have provided the murder weapon, has been identified by police, but has yet to be interviewed.

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