McGrath is wrong about the tricolor not being allowed on caskets in Ireland.

However, throughout the Troubles, there has been a serious bone of contention about it between the anti-republican Catholic hierarchy, and the republican movement. It was not an unusual scene, during the course of the Troubles, for the priest to stop the family and the casket at the door to the church on the way in for the funeral mass, and demand the tricolor be removed from the casket for the duration of the mass.

How many civilian funerals of US military personnel take place in churches where an American flag isn't draped over the casket? Is the Union Jack banned from the caskets in the churches of Northern Ireland? No, of course not.

What you are referring to McGrath, was a very nasty tactic on the part of the Catholic hierarchy in Northern Ireland to further humiliate the grieving family, and force them to toe the unionist/loyalist line, in order to receive a Catholic mass for the a deceased republican family member. Pretty horrid, in my book.