[markedman]

"Never, ever believe anything that the IRA says."

Except when they can no longer reach into the deep pockets of New York and Boston. Its all over. Even in the most die hard reaches of Bainbridge Avenue in the Bronx the IRA has lost its cheering section. Its over - whether all of the organization realizes it is another matter.

[Do not dub me shapka broham]

There was an article published in the New York Press a few years ago-I think it might have been penned by their staff reporter, Jim Knipfel, in fact-about the NORAID operation that remained in the Bronx, now located in a neighborhood that is almost completely devoid of any of the blue-collar, white ethnic/Irish Catholic inhabitants that had originally lived there.

It essentially consisted of a bunch of semi-delusional old bums sitting around a pub trading "war" stories, most of which were wholly-or partially-fictitious.

It struck me-at the time-as something that wouldn't have been out of place in The Iceman Cometh.

Pitiable really.