Freedom for all Ireland Update ” UUP Threat in North of Ireland “

Posted by Jim on September 1, 2015

Liz Gillis ‘The Fall of Dublin’

Posted by Jim on August 30, 2015

Liz Gillis ‘The Fall of Dublin’

Ireland’s Civil War of 1922-1923 must surely mark one of the lowest points in modern Irish history, an internecine conflict the meaning of which continues to divide public opinion. In my childhood it was barely touched upon, inside or outside of school, though the little that was known was enough to create a division (amongst teenagers that cared) between those who identified with the ‘Republican’ side and those who looked to the ‘Free Staters’. Like the civil war itself it was an almost instinctual feeling that left one for or against ‘the Treaty’, regardless of background, class or family (though, occasionally, not).

Despite previous general accounts of the conflict, noticeably Michael Hopkinson’s ‘Green Against Green: The Irish Civil War’, few works have focused on the core military aspects of the conflict, until the Cork-based Mercier Press launched its series ‘Military History of the Irish Civil War’. We have had ‘The Battle For Limerick City’ by Pádraig Óg Ó Ruairc and ‘The Summer Campaign In Kerry’ by Tom Doyle, both of which highlighted the struggles in the south-west of Ireland. However we now have Liz Gillis‘ ‘The Fall of Dublin’ which examines the first, and perhaps deciding, battle of the conflict: the contest for Dublin City.

By the summer of 1921 the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the British Forces in Ireland had come to a pivotal point in a contest that had lasted for only two-and-a-half years yet had seen Britain’s centuries old mastery of the island as a semi-colonial possession within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland challenged as never before. The paramilitary police force of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), the visible face of British rule for decades, had been effectively neutralised through a short war of attrition and communal ostracisation, despite being bolstered by two organised bodies of mercenary recruits composed of veterans from Britain’s demobbed Great War armies. The first of these was the ‘officer class’ Auxiliary Division of the Royal Irish Constabulary or ‘Auxies’ while the second was the ‘common soldiers’ of the Royal Irish Constabulary Reserve Force, more infamously known as the ‘Black and Tans’ or ‘Tans’.

The regular British Army, from what was originally a secondary position at the start of the conflict, had become the main counter-insurgency force of the British state in Ireland by the summer of 1921. Yet a lack of resources or clear strategies left it unsure of the way forward. Most cities and major towns, including Dublin, Cork, Derry and Belfast, were under curfew, and Martial Law had been imposed in the counties of Cork, Kerry, Limerick, Tipperary, Clare and Waterford, with several other midland and western counties scheduled to be added to the list. As the British civil administration crumbled away in many rural areas its authority was replaced by that of the underground Government of the Irish Republic empowered by Dáil Éireann, the twice-elected revolutionary parliament.

Meanwhile Irish Republican Army was successfully generating a wide pool of Volunteers (military recruits) in both ‘active’ and what had been previously ‘settled’ areas (though it was struggling to find enough arms and munitions to arm those potential new members). Where military clashes were not occurring due to a lack of weapons or equipment, local IRA units were actively engaged in recruiting, training, intelligence gathering, logistical support to neighbouring ‘restless’ areas, boycotts, political campaigning, and generally confronting or undermining British rule by other means.

By the third year of the War of Independence the British authorities in Dublin and London could only exercise unchallenged rule in those parts of the country where significant local British ethno-nationalist communities lived (that is populations descended in the main from British colonial settlers). This was most apparent in the northern province of Ulster, where the British Unionist minority on the island formed a regional majority embracing a form of violent separatism from the rest of the island that eventually led Britain to impose a partition, or border, across the north-east of the island creating two semi-autonomous regions within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland: Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland.

As the guerilla war in Ireland approached a crucial phase of ultimate victory or loss for one side or the other in the summer season of 1921 several months of secret negotiations between Irish and British representatives yielded a formal ceasefire or Truce on July 11th of that year. In this part of the conflict, at least, the British can be said to have blinked first. In fact many on both sides expected the war to resume and used the period of the Truce as a time of regrouping. The IRA was put through intensive training, large scale exercises were staged, local and regional intelligence was gathered and assessed, while preparations were made for a renewed conflict (it should be noted that in the North of Ireland the fighting didn’t end with the ceasefire, and in fact the northern campaign of the War of Independence can be said to have lasted until early 1923, with major engagements from April to June of 1922). The British too prepared themselves for imminent and ‘terrible war’, a threat made in London during the ongoing peace talks between the representatives of the two governments that in part influenced the decision of the Irish negotiators to sign a Treaty with the British on the 6th of December 1921.

Narrowly ratified by Dáil Éireann back in Dublin, the Treaty split both the political and military wings of the Republican movement, as a small majority of Sinn Féin politicians supported it while the vast majority of Irish Republican Army soldiers rejected it. Rather than the independent and sovereign all-Ireland Republic they had fought to defend the treaty promised an advanced version of the partition already imposed by the British, except this time ‘Southern Ireland’ would be a largely autonomous nation outside the UK, rather than a barely autonomous region within it. Yet it would still be within the British Empire, a new ‘Irish Free State’ rather than the existing ‘Irish Republic’ and with Ireland partitioned between north and south, the separatist British ethnic minority on the island continuing to enjoy unchallenged mastery in their semi-state in the north-east (in effect turning the larger and now unsustainable British colony of Ireland into the smaller British colony of ‘Northern Ireland’).

For some Irish Nationalists the Free State represented a transitional arrangement, a temporary suspension or abeyance of the Republic that many thought would last no more than a decade or two, an argument that a small minority of Republicans agreed with. Yet many other Nationalists believed it to be an opportunity for the old order of Irish Nationalism that had been seen during the Revolution to be tainted by a century of ‘accommodation’ with British rule (the discredited Irish Parliamentary Party and its adherents in big business and the Roman Catholic Church) to stage a coup’ d’état of their own, suppressing the radical forms of democracy and progressive nationalism freed in the previous decade. Most Irish Republicans viewed the Treaty in that light and saw all that went with it as representing a betrayal of the functioning Republic already mandated by the Irish people and a counter-revolution or hijacking of their independence struggle by the formerly sidelined Ancien Régime of collaborationist and conservative elites.

In the aftermath of the Treaty’s signing and the vote in Dáil Éireann enormous efforts were made to maintain the essential unity of the Irish Republican Army (whatever about Sinn Féin or An Dáil). A series of meetings at a high level between IRA officers who favoured or opposed the Treaty took place, and feelings remained cordial if not friendly. Yet the Republican Army suffered several splits in its leadership with three rival factions emerging, a small minority Pro-Treaty and the two larger majorities both Anti-Treaty (in fact a fourth faction of a sorts existed in the form a Neutral IRA). But this unity of purpose could not last, as the full implications of the Treaty and the determination of those who supported it to implement it in full became apparent, especially within the Army. Bitterness soon replaced cordiality and verbal clashes gradually descended into physical ones too.

In January/February 1922 Richard Mulcahy and Michael Collins, formally the Chief of Staff and Adjutant General (and Director of Intelligence) respectively of the IRA precipitously began turning the small break-way section of Pro-Treaty IRA volunteers into the core of a new Irish National Army (INA). This was to become the military wing of the Irish Free State (also called the Free State Army or in their own parlance, the Regulars). Yet this new nomenclature was resisted from within and some members refused to give up the title of Irish Republican Army, and retained some IRA structures, ranks and insignia. In fact for a time both Collins and Mulcahy were effectively members of both the Republican and National armies, a situation emulated by many other former IRA volunteers, as the lines between the rival forces remained blurred until the war became well advanced (some members and units of the IRA in the North of Ireland became the de facto northern arm of the Free State military, while others sided with the anti-Treaty IRA, or remained neutral – in any case all were supplied with arms or money from the South and continued to call themselves the Irish Republican Army).

One of the first units of the new INA was the Dublin Guard. Initially founded during the latter stages of the War of Independence when the IRA’s Dublin Brigade saw its large Active Service Unit (ASU) amalgamated with the Special Service Unit (or ‘Squad’) of the GHQ Intelligence Department, their name was a nod to what was originally a breakaway faction of the Irish Republican Brotherhood in the late 1800s known as the ‘Old Guard’ (originally followers of James Stephens and later an ad hoc grouping of any number of dissidents), which gradually evolved into an IRB veterans association or the ‘Old Guard Benevolent Union’. The name reflected the make-up of the Dublin Guard most of whose members were sworn activists of the secret IRB of which Collins was the President.

The Guard, along with other units of the Free State military, soon found themselves in donated British Army uniforms (dyed green), British-supplied weapons and equipment, and often British-style formations. As the conflict progressed thousands of ‘demobbed’ soldiers from the British Forces (particularly the so-called Irish regiments disbanded as a result of the Treaty) became a prime target for Free State recruiters, and whole battalions of the INA were composed of ex-British soldiers, RIC men and in some notorious cases ex-Black and Tans. Even the IRB-dominated Dublin Guard was not immune to British influence and it membership swelled with former soldiers of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers (some of whom had fought in the Easter Rising and War of Independence – on the British side). This in part accounts for the later ferocity of the Free State’s war machine when it was fully unleashed on its Republican opponents and undermines the old myth of the Civil War as a simple and tragic brother-against-brother narrative.

On the other side of the approaching conflict the two anti-Treaty IRA groups were soon reunited, and the Irish Republican Army quickly outnumbered its INA splinter by a ratio of three-to-one. It retained the majority of the Army’s combat veterans, the majority of its most experienced officers and just as importantly significant numbers of younger Volunteers. Indeed there was a noticeable experience and generation gap between the IRA and INA. In contrast to the IRA the INA attracted mainly non-combat staff officers or those from uninvolved areas, as well as those closely associated with the Dublin GHQ, with a noticeable tendency towards older men.

However the IRA’s greatest weakness was, as always, its lack of arms and equipment. During the Truce, though some quantities of munitions had been smuggled into the country (and many weapons abandoned, or stolen or bought from the departing British forces), most units remained under-equipped. In the ‘official’ arms importations organised or sanctioned by the GHQ a bias had been given to re-equipping those units thought to be closest to the thinking of the GHQ Staff in Dublin. So the Anti-Treaty IRA entered the conflict with a far poorer stock of weapons and equipment compared to Pro-Treaty forces which were able to draw upon the military resources of the British Empire.

In some ways the split in the Irish Republican Army, and the subsequent civil war, had already seen a dry-run in the division of the original Irish paramilitary organisation from which the IRA had evolved. Formed in 1913 as the Irish Volunteers (or Irish Volunteer Force), this nationalistic militia was created to force or defend the implementation of British-legislated Home Rule in Ireland, which predictably never emerged. It eventually split in 1915 along rival political lines between Irish Nationalists and Irish Republicans (whereas the majority who split off in 1915 were Nationalists, in 1922 the Nationalist splitters were a small minority, a sign of just how far politics in Ireland had progressed). In the aftermath of the 1915 division in the original Irish Volunteers, the breakaway and newly titled Irish National Volunteers (INV) entered a period of uneasy cold war with their former comrades that at times broke out into open violence, an animosity that only dissipated in the aftermath of the Easter Rising of 1916 (though in fact during the insurrection some INV units in Athlone, Wexford and other districts offered help to the British Forces to put down the insurrection, providing military escorts, ‘police’ patrols and scouts; these echoes of this original proto-civil war were to continue to sound in places like Limerick and parts of Ulster throughout the War of Independence and into the Civil War itself).

‘The Fall of Dublin’, and history, records that the opening salvos of the Civil War took place at the Four Courts on the 28th of June 1922 (though some in Kilkenny would claim that the first shots of the civil war were in fact fired in May 1922 when Pro- and Ant-Treaty IRA forces vied for control of the city; just as the people of Cork claim that the first actions of the War of Independence began with hold-ups and gun battles between the IRA and RIC in Cork in 1918, not Tipperary in 1919). However this was simply the culmination of a slow descent into an internecine conflict. In Dublin city the leadership of the Anti-Treaty IRA had set up their national headquarters as had of course their Pro-Treaty INA opponents and here, as Liz Gillis’ ably explains, the Civil War was both lost and won.

In some ways the 1922 Battle of Dublin could be described as a second 1916: poorly organised and led Republicans seizing various buildings and districts around the city centre of Dublin against a much larger, better led and equipped force. Indeed one of the accusations made by some Republicans in the aftermath of the Fall of Dublin was the use of British troops in the assaults on the Republican forces entrenched in the city. Certainly this is given some credence in a paragraph by Gillis describing a mutiny of Pro-Treaty soldiers at Portobello Barracks:

‘Frank Carney, supplies officer at the barracks, was ordered to hand over weapons and other materials that were to be used in the assault:

He was about to obey the order when he recognised the officer receiving them as a British officer from the Phoenix Park depot [the British Army HQ]. Realising it was an alliance with British against Republicans that he was being called upon to take action, he refused to comply and resigned. Several men resigned with him and all were placed under arrest.’

However there is little other evidence of direct involvement by the British Forces in the fighting, though British troops were kept at the ready in bases around the city to intervene if need be and the British provided the artillery, heavy machine guns and armoured vehicles that the Free State forces used to swing the battle in their favour. Further offers from the British including the use of warplanes to bomb and strafe Republican positions were rejected. But later in the war direct British military assistance, particularly from the Royal Navy, was accepted so perhaps British ‘advisers’ were present during the battles at the Four Courts and maybe elsewhere. Certainly as the war progressed the Free State army increasingly resembled a ‘demobbed’ British Army in Ireland.

Amongst the lesser known facts of the Civil War highlighted by Gillis is the re-emergence of the Irish Citizen Army (ICA) during the Battle of Dublin. Beginning life as the de facto military wing of the Labour movement in Ireland, it had participated in the Easter Rising of 1916 but found itself languishing in the aftermath of the insurrection with the death or imprisonment of its leading members. Most surviving ICA soldiers joined the IRA-proper (the Irish Volunteers) or other organisations leaving a skeletal structure behind. One of the few actions it participated in during the War of Independence on its own accord was a clash with British colonial police in Dublin during street protests which resulted in the death of a police officer. However the Truce of 1921 saw a re-founding of the organisation and a larger body of organised left wing (and armed) Republicans. Nearly 150 men and women from the ICA were present in the Irish Republican garrisons in the city and participated directly in the fighting. This, perhaps, is an indicator of how radicalised sections of the Irish population had become throughout the course of the Revolution, particularly on the political left.

Another indicator is the high number of women present in the Republican forces arraigned against those of the nascent Free State. With the Cumann na mBan (CnamB), the Irish Republican women’s organisation, voting against acceptance of the Treaty the movement was firmly in the Republican camp (a handful of pro-Treaty members split off to form a rival Cumann na Saoirse, most because of family ties) and it served a role in the Civil War even greater than the one it had served in the War of Independence (suffering far greater hardship too). Hundreds of women were imprisoned (frequently in horrendous conditions), many took part in prison protests, an unknown number suffered sexual assault, and many were permanently marked as social outcasts in the conservative and reactionary Free State.

What Liz Gillis brings to the fore, and which characterizes the Irish Civil War as a whole, is the clear reluctance of the Republican side to fight the conflict in the first place. This stands in marked contrast to the aggressive willingness of the Nationalist side to wage war against their former comrades, even at the behest of the British. Like the almost civil war between Nationalists and Republicans in the divisions of 1915 it was the Nationalists who were the most ready to turn to violence in opposition to their Republican rivals. In fact, it could be argued that the willingness of Irish Nationalists to engage in ‘Irish-on-Irish’ violence dates back to the era of Daniel O’Connell and his political descendants and that the ‘gun’ was introduced into Irish politics not by Republicans but by Nationalists – against their fellow Irishmen and women.

Arthur Griffith, whose supporters portrayed him as man of peace dragged to war against his will, was one of those eager for the civil war, believing it inevitable and even necessary. Others in the former government of the Irish Republic who now took up residence in the new Free State regime were just as willing to see former colleagues and supporters dealt with – by any means necessary. While the actions of military veterans like Collins or Mulcahy are at least explainable by their experiences during the struggle against the British the ruthlessness of civilians like Griffith, Cosgrave and O’Neill can only be seen in the light of a century-old Irish Nationalist tradition of using violence against political opponents: particularly those espousing Republican beliefs. It is a side of Irish politics that has been rarely examined as the revolutionary violence of Republicanism has drawn all the attention compared to the factional ‘constitutional’ violence of Nationalism.

The remarkably non-partisan ‘The Fall of Dublin’, though short in length, is packed with information, some little known, some surprising, making Liz Gillis a historian worth watching in the future. Like the other books already published in Mercier’s Civil War series it adds greatly to our understanding of this crucial and divisive period in our nation’s history and will perhaps encourage others to re-examine the divisions in Irish politics between Republicanism and Nationalism. Divisions, that like the Civil War itself, still manifest themselves to the present day.

The Murderous Hypocrisy Of The Unionist Parties In Ireland

Posted by Jim on

Billy Hutchinson, Mike Nesbitt and Peter Robinson. The leaders of the UUP and DUP step side-by-side with the leaders of the British terrorist-linked PUP

In many ways the conflict in the north of Ireland, the Long War or the Troubles, call it what you will, began and ended with the Ulster Volunteer Force, the oldest British terrorist organisation on this island nation. From its violent reappearance in the mid-1960s, after decades of nominal absence, to its ceasefire in the mid-to-late 2000s, the grouping was both the oppressor and terroriser of Irish nationalist communities in the north-east and beyond. Beginning with the killing of seventy-four year old Matilda Gould in 1966 and ending with the kidnapping, torture and murder of thirty-seven year old Seán McDermott in 1994 – the year of the UVF’s supposed ceasefire –  the organisation and its proxies were responsible for the slaying of some five hundred men, women and children. Over 90% of these victims were non-combatant civilians and their deaths, and the fear it generated, contributed greatly to Britain’s counter-insurgency struggle against the (Provisional) Irish Republican Army and its rivals or off-shoots.

However the UVF’s reign of terror did not cease with its self-declared truce in 1994. It was merely curtailed. Since the mid-1990s the factional grouping has carried out hundreds of attacks involving the use of guns, bombs, knives and cudgels, attacks which have left over thirty dead and dozens more wounded. Far from ceasing to exist the organisation has expanded its criminal empire to become one of the larger narco-terrorist gangs of western Europe. Not unreasonably one might expect that such a record would place the Ulster Volunteer Force well beyond the bounds of acceptability in most mainstream political quarters. However we are referring here to the UK legacy-colony of “Northern Ireland”, and the UVF, while being terrorists, are British and unionist terrorists. So their crimes, in the eyes of some senior unionist leaders at least, were no real crimes at all. Crudely put, the ideologues of unionism have always found an excuse for those who have gone to war in the name of “Britishness” in Ireland – even if that war involved little more than the killing of defenceless Irish grandparents and their grandchildren.

Hence, when necessary or advantageous to do so, the political representatives of the UVF, the Progressive Unionist Party or PUP, have found seats waiting for them at the table normally reserved for the MPs, MLAs and councillors of establishment unionist parties like the DUP, UUP and TUV, or the followers of the infamous Orange Order. Most recently this convergence of related interests was observed during the so-called “flag protests” by unionist extremists, and the widespread rioting, street-blockades, house-burnings and expulsions which defined them. Throughout this period right-wing unionist politicians maintained close contacts with their militant peers. Indeed at times it seemed that the actions of the one carefully complimented or boosted the actions of the other.

Which brings us to the latest machinations in Belfast, where the minority UUP are threatening to pull out of the dysfunctional Stormont Executive with much self-righteous chest-thumping, while the equally grandstanding majority DUP are threatening to force the expulsion of Sinn Féin from the regional administration. The result of both these actions, if successful, may well be to collapse the finely poised edifice that is the twenty year old peace process. With a growing militancy amongst unionists, an increasing domestic opposition to genuine “power-sharing”, and fears of financial scandals lurking in the background, the UUP and DUP are now placing electoral survival before all else. In that at least they have been joined by the opportunists of Fianna Fáil and Labour, two national parties fearful of SF’s growing attraction to the wavering fringe of their core vote.

Yet what remains clear from all of the above is the utter hypocrisy of mainstream unionism, its ready willingness to embrace and fawn upon the killers of “Catholics” when politic to do so, while rejecting that “terrorism” which exists outside its own control or influence. Simply put, if former or serving activists linked to the UVF or UDA-UFF had carried out a retaliatory killing of a suspected murderer, and their representatives sat in the Stormont administration, every single person reading this piece knows that there would be no question of the DUP, UUP or TUV seeking their expulsion or censure.

Which makes the farce of recent days all the more repugnant.

Robinson accused of “hypocrisy” by victim’s family

Posted by Jim on

THE family of a Catholic man murdered by the UDA have reacted angrily after first minister Peter Robinson offered support for a loyalist questioned by police about the ‘romper room’ killing.

Colum Benstead last night accused the DUP leader of “hypocrisy” after he wrote to a judge urging “leniency”for Samuel Tweed.

The 74-year-old from Newtownards was sentenced to two and a half years in jail yesterday for possessing guns and ammunition and escaping from custody in 1974.

He was arrested in 2012 after spending almost 40 years on the run.

In a letter to the judge the DUP leader said Tweed had “shown remorse” and that he was “urging leniency in this particular and unusual case’.”

Tweed is believed to have been a key member of the notorious UDA Baker/McCreery gang which was responsible for the mass murder of innocent Catholics in the 1970s.

Tweed was one of three men arrested in February this year by police investigating the brutal ‘romper-room’ murder of Short Strand man Pat Benstead in Belfast in December 1972.

All three were later released unconditionally.

Mr Benstead’s death was described by police at the time as a “grisly, revolting murder” carried out by “sadistic fiends.”

He had been shot twice in the head and a cross had been burned into his back alongside the letters ‘IRA’ and the number ‘4’ – a reference to the UDA’s savage G4 unit in east Belfast.

The gang is believed to have killed up to 22 people including eight in ‘romper room’ attacks.

Colum Benstead attended yesterday’s court hearing when it emerged that Mr Robinson, along with east Belfast MLA Sammy Douglas and Strangford MP Jim Shannon, had written letters of support for Tweed.

“To say the least it was astounding given this man was at large for so long,” he said.

“Given their stance with regard to other issues, it smacks of blatant hypocrisy.

“I was shocked that people who hold themselves up as the gatekeepers for law and order should come out and have so much praise for this man.”

Mr Benstead said it “beggars belief” that Tweed remained at large for so long and believes he was a security force agent.

“I believe he was involved in the murder of my brother and a large amount of other murders including members of his own community,” he said.

No-one from the DUP was available for comment.

UNIONISTS HEAD FOR THE EXIT

Posted by Jim on August 29, 2015

The devolved administration in the north of Ireland is moving towards
collapse as both of the main unionist parties have said they are ready
to withdraw from the power-sharing coalition with nationalists.

The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) is to formally pull out of the Stormont
Executive later today. There are clear threats of a similar action being
taken by the much larger Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which could
bring down the Stormont administration within weeks.

Although it is more than seventeen years since the Good Friday peace
agreement, and ten years since the Provisional IRA announced it had
decommissioned its weapons and stood down its Volunteers, unionists
still hold the Adams/McGuinness leadership of Sinn Fein responsible for
any suggestions of lingering PIRA activity.

The current row goes back to the shooting dead of ex-PIRA member Kevin
McGuigan on 13 August. McGuigan was one a number of suspects in the
murder by criminals of Gerard Jock Davison, a former senior IRA figure,
in May. Although the PSNI police blamed a small vigilante group, Action
Against Drugs, for the McGuigan killing, it said it was investigating
the possible involvement of individual members of the Provisional IRA.

The DUP’s stance against sharing power with Sinn Fein appears to have
hardened over recent days. On Thursday, Donaldson confirmed the party
would move to exclude Sinn Fein from the Executive, adding: “In the end,
if the other parties are not prepared to support the exclusion of Sinn
Fein, then we will act unilaterally, and if that means that we have a
period in northern Ireland where we don’t have a government until we
resolve and sort out these issues then so be it.”

‘NO SURPRISE’

Last weekend, in an unusually political statement, PSNI police chief
George Hamilton praise the new peaceful stance of Sinn Fein and the
Provisional IRA.

“Our assessment indicates that a primary focus of the Provisional IRA is
now promoting a peaceful, political, republican agenda,” he said. He
also accepted the “bona fides” of the Sinn Fein leadership regarding
their rejection of violence and pursuit of the peace process.

However, there was a strong reaction to the claim that the PIRA exists
in any form.

British Direct Ruler Theresa Villiers said that it “didn’t come as a
surprise to me”.

“My understanding is, very much in line with that of the chief
constable, that a number of the organisational structures of the
Provisional IRA still exist but that there is no evidence it’s involved
in terrorism or paramilitary activity,” she said.

She added that she was satisfied for the moment that all parties in the
Stormont Executive were supportive of the “principles of democracy and
consent”. But she warned she “wouldn’t shy away from dealing with the
consequences and taking action” if that was found to change.

ADAMS DENIAL

The Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams has insisted that the IRA is “gone” and
had been “undefeated” when it disarmed and stood down in 2005.

He criticised those who have “opportunistically and cynically” sought to
use the recent killings of Jock Davison and Kevin McGuigan to attack
Sinn Fein.

“Let me be very clear,” he said. “The killings of Jock Davison and of
Kevin McGuigan were wrong. Those involved do not represent
republicanism. They are not the IRA. The IRA has gone away – you know.”

He also said: “Those who threaten to take action against Sinn Fein in
the political institutions have no basis whatsoever for this. Sinn
Fein’s mandate and the rights and entitlements of our electorate deserve
exactly the same respect and protection as anyone else’s. And Sinn Fein
will defend that assertively and robustly.”

He added: “We will not be lectured to by those who have failed to honour
their obligations time and again.”

First minister and DUP leader Peter Robinson and Sinn Fein’s Martin
McGuinness are both still on holiday, but are expected to return over
the coming days.

Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said yesterday it was a “time for cool
heads”. He backed the claim by ex-justice minister Michael McDowell that
the Dublin and London believed allowing an IRA “husk” to continue to
exist would prevent breakaway groups from filling the vacuum.

It was claimed that, following the 1998 peace deal, some Provisional IRA
units were tacitly allowed to continue with illegal activities such as
cross-border smuggling.

It has also been pointed out by commentators that loyalist paramilitary
groups have never even pretended to dismantle their structures, and have
continued to recruit and appoint new ‘brigadiers’ and leaders through a
cycle of infighting over the years.

‘AMBIGUITY’

The murder of ‘dissident’ Bobby Moffett in 2010 by the UVF was an
example of ‘internal housekeeping’. And both the UDA and UVF continue to
carry out violent attacks on a daily basis, such as a petrol bomb attack
in the early hours of Wednesday morning on a loyalist critic of the UVF
and his 10-year-old autistic daughter.

Former SDLP deputy first minister Seamus Mallon blamed the governments’
“constructive ambiguity” for creating a situation whereby violence
continued. “All of the ambiguities need to be cleared up because it’s
that which has done the damage and created the ongoing problems,” he
said.

Sinn Fein’s Gerry Kelly accused unionists of engaging in a “sham fight”
driven by electoral rivalry.

“This is an attempt to punish a section of a community for the actions
of a few criminals,” he said. “Sinn Fein will robustly defend our
electoral mandate.”

He said the decision by the UUP to pull out of the Executive “reeks of
opportunism and rank hypocrisy”.

“The fact they have done this on the cusp of an election shows their
actions are being driven by inter-unionist rivalry and electoral
self-interest,” he said.

“It has nothing to do with what is good for society or the stability of
the political institutions and their ability to deliver for all our
people.”

A SPIRAL OF CRISES

Under the Good Friday Agreement, a collapse of the executive would
require both the London and Dublin governments to effectively take
charge until new elections are held. Such a move might allow British PM
David Cameron to force through controversial welfare cuts which had been
previously blocked by nationalists at Stormont.

Many politicians might also hope a third serious crisis, a scandal over
illegal payments allegedly made to senior politicians in relation to a
multi-billion-pound property deal, can now also be sidelined.

British Direct Ruler Theresa Villiers travels to Dublin on Tuesday to
meet 26 County Minister for Foreign Affairs Charlie Flanagan and
Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald. One approach could be to
initiate a new round of wide-ranging talks to address all of the issues
threatening Stormont.

So far the SDLP and Alliance have appeared reluctant to back the
unionist parties and force Sinn Fein out of government, although SDLP
leader Alasdair McDonnell claimed some communities were still “held in a
Mafia-like grip” by the “rump” of the Provisionals.

“We need to behave in a mature fashion here – knee jerk reactions to a
difficult situation are not the answer,” he said. “We want to see our
society move towards normality but there’s no point in throwing the toys
out of the pram.”