Refering to the Provos as the ‘Official’ IRA indicates that the Sun “Journalist” who wrote this probably doesn’t know anything about the History of the IRA that he didn’t look up on wikipedia 5 minutes before he wrote the article.
And relating these murders to ‘appeasing’ Sinn Fein is ridiculous. If it wasn’t for the peace process and the power-sharing arrangement, we’d probably have been dealing with shootings and bombings on a much more regular basis like we did during the height of the troubles from the 1970s-1990s.
How did he come to the conclusion that yesterday’s attacks were the direct consequence of Sinn Fein sharing power?
I don’t think he meant that the PIRA were the technically “official” IRA of old. I think he used the quotation marks to show he was making a metaphorical point - that the Provos became the main focus of dangerous Republicanism. I fear you are being too literal.
And I don’t think he says that “yesterday’s attacks were the direct consequence of Sinn Fein sharing power” in any way so I don’t see how that can be a criticism.