Comments on: Chickens Coming Home to Roost

By: Crooked Timber » » IRA says its armed campaign is over

Crooked Timber » » IRA says its armed campaign is over — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 00:37:17 +0000

[...] Second, this is all bound up with the gradual evolution of Sinn Fein into the main nationalist party of the North, and a significant political force in the Republic. As Martina Purdy argues Sinn Fein and the IRA have done a very good job of managing the peace process in such a way that they didn’t really have to give up anything—nothing important, anyway. Sinn Fein simultaneously talked regular politics while presenting the IRA as a dog (belonging to someone else!) that it had a hard time controlling, and this allowed the party to leverage itself to a central political role. Leaders in Britain and the Republic put up with this for a long time, and not without good reason. But this latest shift can be seen in the light of Gerry Adams’s ambitions to become a legitimate statesman and a political leader in Ireland. The IRA is not useful in the long run to that goal, and he and his allies have been working for a long time to convince others in the organization that victory may be in sight. Recent events—the NI Bank raid and associated round-ups in Ireland, and especially the brutal murder of Robert McCartney—my have strengthened Adams’ hand in this respect. [...]

By: Cleve Blakemore

Cleve Blakemore — Mon, 21 Feb 2005 17:07:05 +0000

After the French made the list, I knew it was only a matter of time before those Irish bastards got lumped into the Axis of Evil. Next up, those prattling coco drinking servants of Lucifer himself, the freakin’ Dutch. John Negroponte always manages to start off with a healthy program of stealth genocide no matter what job the lad is entrusted with, perhaps the time has come to cull the Irish before their wicked plans to destroy world civilization with a genetically engineered crop of superhuman leprechaun soldiers comes to fruition.

By: Peter

Peter — Sat, 19 Feb 2005 15:51:05 +0000

Great thread. As a die-hard conservative, this has really restored my faith that on some issues of decency and humanity left and right can be as one over the sane option. Who exactly are the IRA’s friends on Capitol Hill? I’d like to know, so I can lump them in with the Confederate waxers and the Castro coddlers. The most famous, I think, is New York Congressman Peter King. In John McCain’s words, the only Republican cause he has ever supported is the Irish Republican Army.

By: Jasper Milvain

Jasper Milvain — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 16:12:19 +0000

Another caveat on the ‘easy to trace’ bit: £16-and-a-bit million of the original haul appears to have been new Northern Bank twenties, which is indeed the most part; but that leaves another £10m that could be more difficult to spot. I’m taking my details from here. There was £4m in non-Northern Bank notes.

By: P O'Neill

P O'Neill — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 16:10:30 +0000

Before the latest arrests, the Irish government was still pushing for the White House NOT to exclude Sinn Fein from the St Patrick’s events: http://www.rte.ie/news/2005/0207/northpolitics The government also seemed reluctant to endorse the financial sanctions on Sinn Fein recommended by the International Monitoring Commission. So it’s a combination of the infantile kicking to touch in looking for signals from Bush, plus their own reluctance to play hardball with the Shinners. Maybe the latest arrests will change that.

By: dan hardie

dan hardie — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 15:48:33 +0000

Score one- actually, score several- to the Garda. Chris, the fact is that the first arrests were made well over 24 hours before they were announced but there was a news blackout, so clearly Adams knew about the arrests before the media did. As those arrested were Republicans, their family and friends would have tipped off SF asap. I’d love to agree with Henry, really I would. I’m sure we have pretty much exactly the same views on the IRA. But whilst I agree that the Sinn Fein have no business gladhanding at the White House, the onus here cannot be on the US Government.It is up to the British and Irish Governments to make it plain that if this is proved to be an IRA operation (chances of which are on the high side) then that’s it for SF unless there is a proper measure of disarmament. There’s also a big row in Belfast now about the murder of a Catholic man in the Short Strand by a bunch of Provisionals: the Observer had an excellent article last Sunday. I’ve got a comment on Maria’s current thread, posted yesterday, saying that going by past form London and Dublin will take no serious action against Sinn Fein. I would love – really love- to be proved wrong on this one, but let’s wait and see what happens. Incidentally, Bush refused to shake Adams’s hand at the 2002 and 2003 St Pat’s dos. The guy who has been making tough noises about terror while being nice to Gerry ‘n’ Martin is called ‘Blair’. In the meantime, if the British and Irish governments behave as if only George Bush can take action against Adams- that is utterly infantile.

By: gayle

gayle — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 15:33:39 +0000

Clinton brokered a highly successful peace accord by respectfully engaging the two sides. Of course, Bush is no Clinton so it’s best he stay the hell out of it. . . it’s probably best the rest of us stay the hell out of it, too.

By: tadhg

tadhg — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 14:09:00 +0000

It seems to me that Bush would have little to lose from snubbing the unnamed IRA sympathizers in Congress, who (if memory serves) are largely Democrats) Peter King was the first one that sprang (sprung?) to my mind. I hope Bush does snub SF, just to see the odious PK being pulled both ways.

By: billyfrombelfast

billyfrombelfast — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 14:03:20 +0000

Bush would be doing us all a favour if he canned the entire event. Quite why St Patrick’s Day has to involve the bulk of the Irish cabinet getting on planes to the USA and points further afield is not clear I’ve always wondered this too. It annoys me a great deal.

By: Jim Miller

Jim Miller — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 12:59:15 +0000

I must have missed something in the argument. The most prominent supporter of the IRA in the United States Congress is Ted Kennedy. So, how does Bush lose by annoying him?

By: Jack

Jack — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 09:46:07 +0000

Has Perezoso been disemvoweled or does s/he have a worrying view of the public health of Ireland? An odd name for someone with such distatste for tea drinking.

By: RS

RS — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 08:53:56 +0000

From what I heard only £60k was in Northern notes, which isn’t a disproportionate amount out of £2.3m. So the connection with the Northern raid is far from clear.

By: Chris Lawrence

Chris Lawrence — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 07:55:24 +0000

It seems to me that Bush would have little to lose from snubbing the unnamed IRA sympathizers in Congress, who (if memory serves) are largely Democrats, and self-identified Irish-American voters are concentrated in states that Republicans don’t do well in anyway.

By: chris

chris — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 07:34:46 +0000

Colour me conspiracy-minded, but I couldn’t help noticing that less than 24 hours before the arrests, Gerry Adams made a statement giving himself an escape clause: “The IRA has said it was not them. I believe them,” he told a Spanish radio station. But he added: “But maybe I am wrong.” Given his vehement denials up to now, plus the timing, what are the odds that somebody in London or Dublin tipped him off about the impending arrests, so that they could go on talking to him?

By: Laura

Laura — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 03:39:49 +0000

Henry – I recently heard another story about the IRA and bankrobbery… I guess the IRA has been financing its operation for quite a long time by knocking off banks. Now that the IRA has taken a rest from blowing things up, its members have been unable to return to normal life. All they know is knocking off banks, poor dears. So, they have returned to their old ways, but instead of turning over the proceeds to the IRA, they’ve been keeping the cash for themselves and building large homes for themselves. I guess some dollars have found their way to Sinn Fein, as well. Hardly a surprise.