REALITY NEEDED TO LEAVE ARMS FIRMLY IN THE PAST
Reality needed to leave arms firmly in past
RELATIVES of the Omagh bomb victims have reacted with understandable satisfaction to the guilty verdict handed down to Real IRA chief Michael McKevitt, and Gardai whose work brought him into court were also extremely pleased, as well as grateful to the FBI and MI5 for their help.
Sentencing and an appeal procedure lie ahead but this is, nevertheless, a good moment in which to reflect on important aspects of the McKevitt case. It certainly shows a will in the Republic to deal with violent dissident groups and suggests that sentimental tolerance of "the lads" is a thing of the past.
The scope for dissident groups to conjure a figleaf of historical justification for their campaigns was blown away by the 1998 referenda, in which the people of both parts of Ireland effectively endorsed partition and the distinctive constitutional validity of Northern Ireland. It is worth noting that nationalists and republicans voted positively in such numbers - around 90 per cent - as to put the issue beyond all argument of any sort.
Much has been made in the last couple of days of the media campaign run by Tom Kelly in favour of the Agreement. By contrast, it may be argued with even greater force that there has been an abject failure to "sell" or even adequately to present the fact that the 1998 Agreement settled the underlying constitutional conflict democratically.
A failure to work the Agreement could compound this presentational lapse, even to the point of putting the constitutional issue once more in doubt: and those who would like that to happen are more likely to be manically energetic in their purpose than those dotting 'i's and crossing 't's over institutional minutiae.
If the mainstream will of the overwhelming majority of people in both Northern Ireland and the Republic is fully and properly exercised, then the message will inexorably get through to those who cling to some anti-democratic myth of an Ireland "united, gaelic and free" -in spite of what the people of Ireland actually believe and vote for.
In the meantime, and for as long as serious armaments are out there and available to mad gangs willing to use them, the political will to use the kind of compromised judicial process which nailed Mr McKevitt will remain strong.
For the longer term, the real push must be the political effort to make every kind of paramilitary organisation a part of our nightmare past and, along with them, the kind of degraded and degrading legislation which has been enacted to confront them.
RELATIVES of the Omagh bomb victims have reacted with understandable satisfaction to the guilty verdict handed down to Real IRA chief Michael McKevitt, and Gardai whose work brought him into court were also extremely pleased, as well as grateful to the FBI and MI5 for their help.
Sentencing and an appeal procedure lie ahead but this is, nevertheless, a good moment in which to reflect on important aspects of the McKevitt case. It certainly shows a will in the Republic to deal with violent dissident groups and suggests that sentimental tolerance of "the lads" is a thing of the past.
The scope for dissident groups to conjure a figleaf of historical justification for their campaigns was blown away by the 1998 referenda, in which the people of both parts of Ireland effectively endorsed partition and the distinctive constitutional validity of Northern Ireland. It is worth noting that nationalists and republicans voted positively in such numbers - around 90 per cent - as to put the issue beyond all argument of any sort.
Much has been made in the last couple of days of the media campaign run by Tom Kelly in favour of the Agreement. By contrast, it may be argued with even greater force that there has been an abject failure to "sell" or even adequately to present the fact that the 1998 Agreement settled the underlying constitutional conflict democratically.
A failure to work the Agreement could compound this presentational lapse, even to the point of putting the constitutional issue once more in doubt: and those who would like that to happen are more likely to be manically energetic in their purpose than those dotting 'i's and crossing 't's over institutional minutiae.
If the mainstream will of the overwhelming majority of people in both Northern Ireland and the Republic is fully and properly exercised, then the message will inexorably get through to those who cling to some anti-democratic myth of an Ireland "united, gaelic and free" -in spite of what the people of Ireland actually believe and vote for.
In the meantime, and for as long as serious armaments are out there and available to mad gangs willing to use them, the political will to use the kind of compromised judicial process which nailed Mr McKevitt will remain strong.
For the longer term, the real push must be the political effort to make every kind of paramilitary organisation a part of our nightmare past and, along with them, the kind of degraded and degrading legislation which has been enacted to confront them.
Further Information
Publisher: NEWS LETTER
Ref: NL/471
Published Date: 07-Aug-03
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