At last the light is shone on the IRA

Telegraph (UK) ^ | 3/13/2005 | Kevin Myers

[1066AD]

At last the light is shone on the IRA Kevin Myers (Filed: 13/03/2005)

No event in Northern Ireland in recent years has distilled the abominable and corrupted reality of life under the peace process as the murder of Robert McCartney. Half beaten to death, one eye gouged out, his throat cut, and then gutted like a fish, he was left to die while his IRA killers returned to the pub from which they had flushed him, to warn the customers there of the fate awaiting them if they informed. Then making off with the cassette from the CCTV, they proceeded to destroy all the forensic evidence associated with the killing.

This was an exception to recent IRA activity only in the steadfastness of the victim's family, for the IRA has been murdering the inconvenient and the awkward throughout the decade of the so-called peace process. It now rules nationalist ghettoes with a kneecap-breaking rod of gun-metal. Violence is turned on and off at will. The green gestapo of one day become emerald-coloured community workers the next. Everyone knows this, and almost everyone - the two governments in Dublin and London in particular - has turned a blind eye to it. Denial of the criminal regime governing nationalist areas was the price to be paid for keeping Sinn Fein-IRA in the peace process.

So the two governments are probably bitterly regretting the dogged persistence and courage of Robert McCartney's five sisters and his girlfriend Bridgeen: if only they had been the passive and acquiescent kin of the nearly four dozen other victims of IRA murder gangs of recent years, who meekly buried their dead and stoically concealed their grief and anger.

This was the world according to P O'Neill, the mythic signatory of all IRA statements, in which at the IRA's insistence, the old RUC was dismantled, its Special Branch destroyed, and in return, the British Government was given precisely nothing by Sinn Fein.

This was deal-making at its most supinely inept, for IRA authority in nationalist areas is now effectively absolute, as became clear after the McCartney murder. While the Police Service of Northern Ireland investigation floundered, in part because of the street-opposition organised by Sinn Fein, the IRA was able to assemble a clear picture of the events of the night from witness statements gathered by its own investigations team. This might almost be entertaining if it wasn't so utterly appalling, not merely for what it has meant in the past, but what it inescapably means for the future.

You cannot civilise or tame Sinn Fein-IRA. It is not possible. For bred in their bone and blood is a uniquely barbaric ethos. Of all European political parties, perhaps only the Nazis so successfully wove tribal myth, ancient heroes, victimhood, violence and utter immunity from civil and criminal law into an integral part of their identity. The peace process didn't draw the Sinn Fein movement away from these defining toxins: quite the reverse. In the agreeable culture of appeasement, the political antibodies that should have been combating the spread of the republican virus failed to respond.

So, far from being banned from the airwaves, republicans inhabited them almost full-time, and the Sinn Fein malignancy spread through nationalist Ireland, north and south of the border. In the past decade, the political map of Ireland has been utterly transformed, and for thousands of young people across the island, Sinn Fein is the future.

Thus, reassured by the governments of Dublin and London that separate rules applied to them, IRA men felt free to butcher poor Robert McCartney, confident they could get away with it. And indeed they would have done but for the five McCartney sisters who in their resolution were more than a match for the IRA. Mesmerised by such principled opposition, of a kind it that it had never met before, it made the public announcement that it had offered to shoot the murderers of their brother Robert. Thus spoke the authentic, visceral voice of Irish republicanism, finally and no longer emptily miming the meaningless patois of democracy.

For poor Robert McCartney was not some entirely unprecedented and unexpected victim of the deranged morality of the peace process, but merely the latest. Again, only the grotesqueness of this wretched business prevents it from being thoroughly farcical. His killers had, with exquisite sensitivity, spent the day in Londonderry, at a march commemorating the dead of Bloody Sunday. The chief steward there, an IRA-man called Bart Fisher, was awaiting sentencing for the knife-killing of a fellow working class Catholic man, Jimmy McGinley. Here again, all witnesses had been intimidated by the IRA into silence, and what might have been a murder charge was reduced to manslaughter. And now, this killer was an honoured leader on what has become a feast-day in the republican calendar: thus the peace process, thus the peace.

No doubt Sinn Fein-IRA are expecting that the routine denunciations of the IRA by both governments will soon be forgotten, as so much else has been in the past 10 years. After all, the extraordinary anti-terrorist measures just passed by Parliament were not framed to deal with the most active and lethal terrorists in the United Kingdom.

However, such republican optimism does not take into account the feelings of Unionists, who will not allow any of their representatives to get within shouting distance of the peace process. More importantly, it neglects the shift in policy creation towards Northern Ireland within the US away from the State Department and towards the CIA. It is clear to the US administration that Gerry Adams is no more than an Irish Yasser Arafat - and no more reliable. Moreover, US intelligence is no longer prepared to tolerate either a potentially lethal terrorist enclave, a little Tora Bora in the South Armagh triangle, or the unfettered authority of its local warlord, Slab Murphy.

So Washington is now taking a more unforgiving look at Northern Ireland than are Dublin or London. Moreover, the Colombia Three, the Northern Bank robbery, and Robert McCartney are a reminder of the old CIA adage: the first time is happenstance, the second time is coincidence, but a third time is enemy action. US officials are now demanding that Sinn Fein disband the IRA.

The IRA's brutal arrogance has finally won it a new and truly formidable enemy. His name is Bush.

[1066AD]

The IRA's brutal arrogance has finally won it a new and truly formidable enemy. His name is Bush.

Let's hope so.

[jocon307]

The IRA is a COMMUNIST ORGANIZATION. Why does no one ever point this out?

[elbucko]

The IRA is a COMMUNIST ORGANIZATION. Why does no one ever point this out?

It does not reach cognition. As an Irish American with enough Irish blood to still have cousins in Co. Cork, the idea that the "Troubles" were instigated by assistance of Moscow to Belfast Marxists in 1969, just does not sink in to most Americans, let alone the Irish, or Irish Americans. Jerry Adams is every bit as evil as "Uncle Joe". Adams flag is red with a hammer and sickle, not blue with a harp, but this contradiction goes over every ones head. When the Soviet Union folded I bet an Irish friend that the IRA will seek peace while it seeks new funding, then begin the terror again. It's a bet I wish I'd lost.

So it's a pint to Bush for snubbing Adams and a head dunking in the loo for Clinton letting Adams in the White House.

[jocon307]

"So it's a pint to Bush for snubbing Adams and a head dunking in the loo for Clinton letting Adams in the White House."

Here! Here! I'll drink to that!

[Paul C. Jesup]

The IRA is a COMMUNIST ORGANIZATION. Why does no one ever point this out?

While Britian has become a politically correct communist country where it's citizens have no rights to privacy, nor rights to defend themselves, with an insanely high tax rate to boot.

I am just putting everything in context.

For the most part for the last ten years or so, the IRA has been playing nice, the main sticking point being the UK government wants the IRA to give up all their weapons, but given the UK government's treatment of it's own citizens right now, I can see why the IRA has not done so.

[Axlrose]

I didn't know the UK government was placing nailbombs in shopping centers.

[Paul C. Jesup]

I didn't know the UK government was placing nailbombs in shopping centers.

And when was the last time that happened?

Also the UK government sent a farmer to life imprison for defending himself.

[elbucko]

I think you're confusing issues. This isn't about the American 2nd. Amendment, but a brutal Irish political Mafia, the IRA.

[Axlrose]

That makes it OK does it ? Is there a timelimit on murder in the US ? If you don't get caught for 10 years you get a free pass ?

Tony Martin btw didn't get sent down for life, he's been out for some time now. He shot a boy in the back who was running off his property, not in self defence. There are not many, if any, states in the US where he would have been able to claim self defence. If he'd have shot him in the face while he was still in his house chances are he never would have served time.

This has been a topic of discussion recently. The government released a pamphlet spelling out what homeowners can do in self defence. If you are under threat you can kill the intruder. Tony Martin wasn't.

[Paul C. Jesup]

I think you're confusing issues. This isn't about the American 2nd. Amendment, but a brutal Irish political Mafia, the IRA.

I am not confusing the issue. The UK has become a tyranny, and it is wrong not to take that into account when dealing with issues on the IRA.

Also, I guess everyone else here ignores ten years of efforts on the part of the IRA to be peaceful.

[Axlrose]

A tyranny you say ?

So, when was political expression outlawed ?

Where are the death camps ?

When was the next election cancelled ?

[Axlrose]

The only thing that has been ignored is 10 years of the IRA murdering, robbing, smuggling, running drugs, training FARC and Palestinian terrorists, and various other "peaceful" activities.

[elbucko]

Also, I guess everyone else here ignores ten years of efforts on the part of the IRA to be peaceful.

Not me. I knew it was all bull. The last ten years of "peace efforts" by the IRA have only been a ruse to buy time to find funding since the IRA's "Sugar Daddy, the Soviet Union, closed its Marxist wallet. Now the IRA is searching for drug or Al Qaeda funding.

The IRA would rather see Ireland burn, than be at peace.

[Paul C. Jesup]

That makes it OK does it ? Is there a timelimit on murder in the US ? If you don't get caught for 10 years you get a free pass ?

There are two ways you can solve something, you can either kill every man, women and child who opposes you, or you can do it peaceful. I could care less either way. But the IRA has been honorable in that they have made an effort to be peaceful in the last ten years. All the while in the last ten years the UK government in spirit has become the communist mafia that the IRA used to be.

It would be poetic if it were not tragic.

Now, what did the IRA do to YOU that makes you so against them? Now if you were against the PLO I could understand because the PLO talks about peace but ten minutes later they use a car bomb against their enemies, while the IRA has be true to their word for the most part and they have not committed any serious acts of terror in the last ten years.

[Paul C. Jesup]

The IRA would rather see Ireland burn, than be at peace.

Care to provide evidense, or do we just take your word evidense solely because you don't like the IRA.

[Paul C. Jesup]

A tyranny you say ?

Yes.

So, when was political expression outlawed ?

By use of state controled media and poltical correctness.

Where are the death camps ?

Not there yet, but they are in the process of creating gettos where the citizens has no privacy (cameras are every street corner) and no rights to defend themselves.

When was the next election cancelled ?

The leading party has destroyed the opposing parties in everything but name only.

[Brox]

It's strange that you defend people who deliberately kill little children.

[Paul C. Jesup]

It's strange that you defend people who deliberately kill little children.

And when was the last time that happened?

By the way, I am pro-life and against abortion, like in the UK.

[elbucko]

Care to provide evidense,...

No, the "evidence " is there, for those who are not too blind to look.

[Axlrose]

The bomb in Omagh on Saturday 15 August 1998 resulted in 29 deaths and hundreds of injuries. It was the single worst incident in Northern Ireland during the current conflict.


Breda Devine (20 months), from Donemana, County Tyrone. Breda was taken by her mother Tracey (27) her into Omagh to shop for a wedding gift. Tracey Devine was seriously injured after suffering 60 per cent burns.

James Barker (12), from Buncrana, County Donegal, Republic of Ireland. James' family had only moved to Buncrana from England a year before the bombing. James was one of three boys from Buncrana to die in the explosion.

Oran Doherty (8), from Buncrana, County Donegal, Republic of Ireland. Oran was one of three boys from Buncrana to die in the explosion. His family said that he had been looking forward to going to Omagh all week.

Maura Monaghan (18 months), from Augher, County Tyrone. Maura's mother and grandmother were also killed. Maura was the youngest victim of the bombing. This is the IRA's honour. 10 years ? Hey Osama has only 7 years to go until all is forgiven !