Myers writes:

Supporters of the peace process will of course declare that the IRA has finally announced the campaign is over, so what reasonable objection could Unionists have to sharing power with Sinn Fein? First, the statement did not say the IRA was disbanding; the reverse is true. It talked of its volunteers and "oglaigh" (Irish for "soldiers": a deliberate use of a formal military word). Nor did it say the war was over, merely that the campaign was over. Any soldier knows the difference: the end of the campaign in North Africa in 1943 did not end a war that finished in 1945.

So, contrary to many fantastic media exegeses, by its own admission, the IRA will remain in existence, and it will still be armed.

McKearney writes:

No matter what view the contending schools of republicanism take on the Good Friday Agreement, it is imperative that the core republican task of establishing an independent, democratic republic be reiterated and a strategy for achieving this made clear.

The IRA statement effectively recognises material reality. The current imperative is now for all republicans to address the future with an equal amount of reality and candour.

McIntyre writes:

This morning's (Friday) headlines should read 'excitable hacks go orgasmic over IRA statement.' But such headlines are 'not helpful to the peace process' and therefore long suffering readerships will have to endure the guff about seismic shifts, historic developments and whatever else takes the fancy of the scribbling class.

Like the Official IRA before it, and in whose shoes it now so comfortably strides, the current IRA, by the mere fact of its existence, will continue to function; not militarily against the British state, but as a militia to give muscle to Sinn Féin and as an organ of intimidation.

Waugh writes:

There must be a law-abiding state provided for a fledgling administration to govern. If the state is lawless, that administration will not survive. But a law-abiding State has as its sine qua non that all its citizens support it, its laws, its institutions and, above all, its constitution for the time being by democracy established.

This means that, in the meantime, to become "lawful" they must observe its laws; not oppose the armed forces of the State (within whose ranks, after all, previous generations of republicans have served with distinction); they must join its police force; play a full part in Parliament, according to the will of the electorate; and its representatives accord a modicum of courtesy to the head of state and her family on ceremonial occasions.

From the linked report -

Having seen the statement I judged that it materially affected the evidence that I would have submitted to the Sentence Review Commissioners.[emphasis added]

and from the BBC's Mark Devenport

Mr Hain has now openly said that, because of the new context, he will not submit intelligence material put at his disposal to another quango, the Sentence Review Commission.

We offer our sincere apologies and condolences to their families. There have been fatalities among combatants on all sides. We also acknowledge the grief and pain of their relatives.

I, I hope we, we can move to a situation where the co-operation, ahh, on this island, on things that make sense to co-operate on, like we're doing at the moment on tourism, on matters of trade, on things like electricity, and, on health issues, we should continue to try to build up our confidence over that period of time. And then, ahh, in another time, people might, on the basis of consent, see that a united Ireland is the right thing to do. It's not going to happen in the short term and I don't think it'll happen in my political lifetime.

The interview is available as part of the BBC's podcasting trials.

By Noreen Erskine
BBC News website

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4726915.stm

As the IRA says it is giving up the armed campaign, BBC News talks to a woman who lost her father and sister in the Shankill Road bombing.

Beth McGrath plans to celebrate her 25th wedding anniversary next month with a trip to Prague.

Beth McGrath says bitterness does not aid the healing process

It will be a happy journey - unlike the painful one she has had to make over the past 12 years.

In 1993, an IRA bomb left in her father's fish shop on the Shankill Road in Belfast exploded during a sunny autumn afternoon.

Beth's father, John Frizell, and her younger sister, Sharon McBride, were among nine Protestants killed.

Thomas Begley, one of two IRA men who brought the bomb into the shop, also died when the building collapsed into a pile of rubble.

The IRA's announcement that it has ended its armed campaign after more than 30 years of violence has been heralded as "a step of unparalleled magnitude" by Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Beth, 44, from north Belfast, is more sceptical.

I would only be hindering my growth... if I allowed myself to be bitter or enraged

Beth McGrath

"I have heard words like unprecedented and historic being used about this statement.

"But there have been other statements in the past, and then there have been compromises and other clauses put in, so I am slightly cautious.

"I think there's a lot of fine tuning needed.

"The IRA are still very adamant that their aims remain the same," she said.

During the Northern Ireland Troubles, the IRA murdered about 1,800 civilians and members of the security forces.

Mother-of-four Beth works for Wave, a cross-community organisation set up in 1991 to support victims of the violence in Northern Ireland, and is acutely aware of the ongoing suffering of many victims' families.

'Small fish'

She is unsure about the outcome of the IRA's declaration.

"It's now been 11 years since the beginning of the IRA's so-called ceasefire in 1994, and 12 years from when my dad and my sister were killed.

"I'm thinking about the parallels between the healing of the country and my healing process," she said.

Nine Protestants were killed in the blast at Frizell's fish shop

"For me, my healing will continue at my own pace.

"Statements like this won't really affect that in any great way, but I'd like to think it might help make this a better place for people in general if we can find a way to put differences aside and move forward in an active way."

Neither the contents nor the timing of the long-awaited statement surprised her.

"In the aftermath of the London bombing and events worldwide, I think people are fed up hearing about the Northern Ireland story.

"We are small fish now, very small fish. The statement is just words, and only time will tell its exact importance," she said.

'Different perspective'

Beth is also philosophical about the latest release from jail of Sean Kelly, one of the two IRA men who carried out the 1993 Shankill Road bombing.

Although given nine life sentences, he was freed early under the Good Friday Agreement in July 2000.

The victims included Beth's sister Sharon, pictured with husband Alan

He was returned to prison in June after security information indicated he had become re-involved in terrorism, but was released again on Wednesday night, ahead of the IRA statement.

"I don't allow myself to get angry or emotionally involved about his release because if the authorities decide it's going to happen, it will," she said.

"I would only be hindering my growth and my healing process, my life and that of my children if I allowed myself to be bitter or enraged.

"If you go through a trauma, you deal with life afterwards from a different perspective."

I'll excerpt part of Ed Moloney's article - but go read the whole thing

Evidence that ambiguity lives on and that this is probably deliberate comes in the apparent fact that there has been no IRA Convention, no attempt by the leadership to refashion republicanism for a new order. No Convention means no changes to the IRA constitution. The IRA’s legally binding commitment to “wage revolutionary armed struggle” when possible thus survives and sits uneasily besides P O’Neill’s new, non-binding public pledge to use only political methods in the future.

The fact that there has been no Convention also means that legally speaking the IRA has not ended its war, no matter what yesterday's statement said. Only a Convention can end the war with Britain and that has not happened. Ending the armed campaign - notice the statement did not say "armed struggle" - means this move is similar to the ending of the 1956-62 campaign. An important event for sure, even historic but the option of returning to armed struggle survives, as it did in 1962.[emphasis added]

That 1962 comparison was also highlighted recently in a report by the BBC's Marie Irvine.. and was noted here by Mick

More from Ed Moloney's article -

But in place of disbandment we now have a development that is bad news for the peace process no matter how it pans out. According to Justice Minister Michael McDowell, the three Sinn Féin members of the Army Council, Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness and Martin Ferris have all quit, leaving the IRA leadership solely in the hands of 'soldiers'.

Sceptics will be entitled to suspect that this is the beginning of a fraudulent divorce of Sinn Féin from the IRA in which Sinn Féin continues to benefit from the leverage that IRA activity or potential IRA activity brings while being able to deny any responsibility for it. The IRA meanwhile, led by an Army Council that more closely resembles a Mafia Commission these days, will carry on robbing, forging and smuggling - and anyone who thinks they won't is living in cloud-cuckoo land - while thanks to yesterday's statement those involved will be able to deny culpability.[emphasis added again]

A point, noted here at the time, which Vincent Browne in the Irish Times on Wednesday agrees with but interprets in a benign way.

Ed Moloney goes on to argue that this was a missed opportunity for the two governments to achieve their previously stated goal -

There was a way to address the disbandment of the IRA which would have been persuasive and effective but, crucially, none of the Provo leadership suggested it nor, as far as is known, did the two governments ask for it.

With the minimum of risk and cost to itself while at the same time signalling its intentions to Unionists and the world in a compelling way, the IRA could have stood down its units in Britain, in North America, in Australia and New Zealand and elsewhere. Thus a disbandment process would have started which could be accelerated if conditions improved or easily reversed if they worsened. At the same time neither the hegemony of the Provos' within republicanism nor the confidence of their rank and file in their leaders would be threatened.

The fact that not even this most minimal move has been made can only strengthen the conviction that the Adams/McGuinness leadership wishes to keep the IRA intact, albeit now at a distance from themselves, both as a way of injecting instability into Irish politics when it suits and to trade it for greater prizes in the future. The Taoiseach may be correct, that this is the start of the IRA morphing into a commemorative body. But who would bet the mortgage on it? The Unionists certainly won't.[emphasis added]

And he argues that the reason for that failure of government lies in their misreading of Adams' position -

The real problem is that they mistake Gerry Adams’ caution for weakness. When he manoeuvres and manipulates the IRA into concessions they see that as an admission of his own vulnerability and that if a wrong, hasty move is made then he could end up in a ditch and the rest of us could be pitched back into conflict.

That was certainly true when the peace process began in the 1980’s and when the IRA ceasefire was called in 1994. There may even have been validity to that view five years ago. But not now. Too many things have changed for that to be credible any longer. The truth is that Gerry Adams and his allies now have, and have had for some time, complete control over the IRA and can take it in whichever direction they wish. And not only does the IRA not want to go back to war, it cannot. If Adams continues to manipulate the IRA it is not because he has to but because it convinces the governments he is weaker than he actually is.

For reasons known only to themselves neither Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair nor any of their advisers can or wish to see that. Until they do, this peace process will drag on forever.

Gerry Adams is right about one thing at least: history will not judge kindly anyone who plays politics with a real choice between peace and conflict on the island of Ireland. Yet the Sinn Féin president might allow that the same holds true for him. In throwing out his challenge to the unionist leadership, Adams can probably be confident that the Rev Ian Paisley's first response to yesterday's IRA statement will not be his last. A huge responsibility rests upon the Democratic Unionist Party.

The challenge is double-edged:

At every point in this unfolding process, therefore, Paisley and his colleagues have to question whether that purpose is advanced or achieved by the exercise of veto and the politics of exclusion.

But:

However, Adams would be unwise to assume the outcome will be determined by the early British and Irish governments' rush to judgment in the republicans' favour. Ian Paisley's leadership position is not the result of any accident of politics. It derives rather from the failure of a succession of previous republican initiatives to match words with actions.

Unionist scepticism, he argues, relates to previous failed attempts to get the Republican movement to come to this same point:

Likewise, last December, when the two prime ministers tried much the same trick on Paisley. They told a Belfast press conference that a historic DUP/ Sinn Féin deal breakthrough had failed on the sole issue of providing a photographic record of IRA weapons decommissioning. It was only subsequently, courtesy of Tánaiste Mary Harney, that we discovered the IRA had also resisted demands by the Progressive Democrats for a statement recognising "the need to uphold and not to endanger anyone's personal rights and safety"

He notes that the British and Irish governments have questioned the extent of IRA activity, with McDowell's accusation of the IRA as "an organised conspiracy, intent on continuing as a lightly armed gendarmerie", and Ian Pearson's charge "that the Provisionals ranked as possibly the most sophisticated criminal organisation in western Europe".

He concludes:

After the bellicose and threatening language of IRA statements earlier this year, Blair can claim to have banished the threat of resumed violence on his watch. Yet even now, we have no settlement but the promise rather of more process. Right-thinking people will hope it eventually leads to accommodation and the new beginning promised in April 1998. But we should also allow that it might instead lead to a new point of divergence for politics in Northern Ireland.

Unless something goes horribly wrong, it [IRA statement] has the potential to go into the history books as one of the most decisive of all the "historic" moments that the last decade has seen. It was a statement that has been keenly awaited for years. Though some reacted initially with deep scepticism and suspicion, it was hailed in other quarters as a historic change of heart.

But it is too late for all those widows. Nobody knows how many the IRA created, but the figure runs into the hundreds. The organisation killed 1,700 of the 3,700 people who died in the Troubles, leaving men, women, children, families to grieve.

The guns and explosives it now promises to do away with caused decades of destruction as it sought to unite Ireland by force. But instead of achieving Irish unity it caused all those deaths, ruining lives and shattering families. The bereaved and injured will have mixed feelings about this latest move: the main hope of most of them will be that no one else should suffer as they have. Some of those affected are deeply bitter; others have shown transcendent qualities of forgiveness.

This not a trivial point. Some suggest that this deal is simply the December deal deferred. In fact this is the fourth time of asking since the local institutions collapsed in the wake of the discovery of an alleged IRA spy ring in Stormont.

He goes on to lay out the potential timeline for the reenstatement of normal politics:

There will need to be a process of verification by the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC), which now has a track record in assessing paramilitary activity and criminality. The IMC will report in October, and again in January, on whether all aspects of paramilitarism have ended: an end to recruitment; to training; to intelligence-gathering; to targeting; to weapons procurement; to so-called punishment beatings; and to exiling young people from their communities.

In return for Sinn Fein joining the policing boards, he will finally resolve the vexed case of the on the runs - those who offences have never come before court, or were not apprehended during or after the troubles, and therefore not covered by the Belfast Agreement.

Then, and only then does he expect the Unionists to come back into play:

In this new environment it will be the responsibility of unionism to respond positively. Provided that the actions have followed the words and the IRA is locked into a democratic and peaceful path, then we will want early negotiations towards the resumption of shared government through a resurrected Northern Ireland assembly.

I'm off for a week. Will pop in obviously, but don't expect me to pay attention quite as much. The papers should be fun tomorrow though. It'll be interesting to see how they all present the IRA story - and will there be any surprising reaction? Hardly imagine so. I do imagine a late breakfast with a large pile of newspapers around lunchtime though...

Interestingly, he notes alleged developments in the Republic in which money raising and laundering are said to have been privatised:

Moreover, with the quasi-military structure still in extant, the ability to raise millions of pounds and euros for the republican movement's political wing remains. As has happened already in Dublin, the IRA has "subcontracted" most of its illegal fundraising activities out to ordinary criminals in the Irish capital, who are "taxed" by republicans.

As far as the UUP is concerned actions speak louder than words. We have seen only their words today. Since the IRA has killed thousands and injured thousands more, it is inexcusable that the statement claims that its ‘armed struggle was entirely legitimate’ but fails to express a single word of remorse.

It also leaves fundamental questions unanswered. Where is the confirmation of the disbandment of the IRA? What evidence will the Unionist community see that all weapons have actually been destroyed?

Republicans should realise that, having eroded Unionist confidence to such an extent, we will only judge this statement on the basis of what happens next.

Above all, this statement is an admission of failure by Republicans. Their bloody campaign to try and break the will and resolve of the pro-Union community did not work. They are now facing this reality and retreating under a cloak of rhetoric and choreography.

Mr Paisley has also been somewhat sceptical in reply.

We will judge the IRA’s bona fides over the next months and years based on its behaviour and activity.

What it does say is that IRA arms are to be dumped. That there will then follow a deal that should seal all or some of those dumps. And that IRA volunteers "have been instructed to assist the development of purely political and democratic programmes through exclusively peaceful means". Effectively, to jump ship from the IRA to Sinn Fein?

For good measure the clause the governments wanted in December to cover criminal activity, appears now to have been appended with: “Volunteers must not engage in any other activities whatsoever”.

No specific reference to policing, but no pejorative reference to the PSNI either. Indeed the relevant paragraph seems to pass the responsibility for the defence of Catholic neighbourhoods to ‘society’. Vague, yes. But it would seem to clear the way for the acceptance of a legitimate police force.

And it would appear that the IRA is now finally prepared to sign up to the principle of consent:

The IRA is fully committed to the goals of Irish unity and independence and to building the Republic outlined in the 1916 Proclamation. Our decisions have been taken to advance our republican and democratic objectives, including our goal of a united Ireland. We believe there is now an alternative way to achieve this and to end British rule in our country.

In short the statement looks like a tacit agreement to do what Unionists thought the IRA was already signed up to do within two years of the Belfast Agreement. Then, however, David Trimble decided to jump first and let the IRA follow in its own time.

Now the promissory note will have to be fulfilled entirely before Sinn Fein can expect any reciprocation from its new prospective dance partner in Northern Ireland – Ian Paisley and the DUP.

And so the party continues...

And, in light of the most recent assessment of the Independent Monitoring Commission in its 5th report -

PIRA continues to seek to maintain its medium term effectiveness. It recruits and trains new members, including in the use of firearms and explosives. It continues to gather intelligence.

I'd note certain items on the reported list of measures to be introduced -

Outlawing "acts preparatory to terrorism"

New offence of indirect incitement to commit terrorist acts

New law for those providing or receiving terrorist training

Also included in the BBC report is this section -

The bill is expected in the autumn and the legislation could be on the statute books by next summer.

The timetable is the same as originally planned for new anti-terror legislation before the 7 July attacks.

But ministers say they will take notice if the police and security services want the measures sooner, or if they want further powers.

Timing, eh?

"The leadership of Óglaigh na hÉireann has formally ordered an end to the armed campaign.

This will take effect from 4pm this afternoon.

All IRA units have been ordered to dump arms. All Volunteers have been instructed to assist the development of purely political and democratic programmes through exclusively peaceful means. Volunteers must not engage in any other activities whatsoever.

The IRA leadership has also authorised our representative to engage with the IICD to complete the process to verifiably put its arms beyond use in a way which will further enhance public confidence and to conclude this as quickly as possible.

We have invited two independent witnesses, from the Protestant and Catholic churches, to testify to this.

The Army Council took these decisions following an unprecedented internal discussion and consultation process with IRA units and Volunteers.

We appreciate the honest and forthright way in which the consultation process was carried out and the depth and content of the submissions. We are proud of the comradely way in which this truly historic discussion was conducted.

The outcome of our consultations show very strong support among IRA Volunteers for the Sinn Féin peace strategy.

There is also widespread concern about the failure of the two governments and the unionists to fully engage in the peace process. This has created real difficulties.

The overwhelming majority of people in Ireland fully support this process.

They and friends of Irish unity throughout the world want to see the full implementation of the Good Friday Agreement.

Notwithstanding these difficulties our decisions have been taken to advance our republican and democratic objectives, including our goal of a united Ireland. We believe there is now an alternative way to achieve this and to end British rule in our country.

It is the responsibility of all Volunteers to show leadership, determination and courage. We are very mindful of the sacrifices of our patriot dead, those who went to jail, Volunteers, their families and the wider republican base. We reiterate our view that the armed struggle was entirely legitimate.

We are conscious that many people suffered in the conflict. There is a compelling imperative on all sides to build a just and lasting peace.

The issue of the defence of nationalist and republican communities has been raised with us. There is a responsibility on society to ensure that there is no re-occurrence of the pogroms of 1969 and the early 1970s.

There is also a universal responsibility to tackle sectarianism in all its forms.

The IRA is fully committed to the goals of Irish unity and independence and to building the Republic outlined in the 1916 Proclamation.

We call for maximum unity and effort by Irish republicans everywhere.

We are confident that by working together Irish republicans can achieve our objectives.

Every Volunteer is aware of the import of the decisions we have taken and all Óglaigh are compelled to fully comply with these orders.

There is now an unprecedented opportunity to utilise the considerable energy and goodwill which there is for the peace process. This comprehensive series of unparalleled initiatives is our contribution to this and to the continued endeavours to bring about independence and unity for the people of Ireland.

Update This section is included on UTV but omitted elsewhere, it appears to be part of the introduction to the actual text of the statement.

Irish Republican Army orders an end to armed campaign.

The IRA is fully committed to the goals of Irish unity and
independence and to building the Republic outlined in the 1916 Proclamation.

Our decisions have been taken to advance our republican and
democratic objectives, including our goal of a united Ireland.

We believe there is now an alternative way to achieve this and to end British rule in our country."

UPDATE: PA reports

The IRA today ordered an end to its armed campaign.

A statement by the IRA's leadership also called on members to dump arms, cease all military activity and to assist in the development of a democratic process through exclusively peaceful means. But the statement said the organisation would not disband as Unionists have
been demanding.

Before you get grouchy, I like Bertie really, I just wish I had access to his source of tickets.

"We do have some financial problems but it is important to remember that there is no suggestion of theft, fraud or dishonesty," explained an Abbey national chairperson. "As the sole legitimate theatre company of Ireland, nothing we do can be a crime. Except against art."

The Abbey is expected to announce shortly a complete cessation of backstage operations before permanently transferring its main cast of characters to the front lobby.

"This is a testing time for all those of us who have given our lives to this unique national institution," said an Abbey president- for-life. "We have been told to get rid of our most cherished props, forget our most celebrated acts and move on from our most famous roles. Everyone has been asked to help sell the programme."

The exact wording remains unknown at time of going to press but leading playwrights say it is unlikely to contain many surprises. "They'll start by thanking all their actors for every performance they've given down the years," one playwright said.

"They may acknowledge that a lot of people corpsed but they always blame that on problems with the set. They'll congratulate themselves at some length for noticing that the curtain has finally come down although they won't use the expression 'final curtain' as actors are very superstitious."

Forsaking agreed mechanisms Sinn Fein has none of the safety nets previously on the table in December:

Today, the IRA will have to travel on ground it refused to go down last December, but this time without a guarantee that the other parts of the jigsaw so painstakingly constructed then can be made to fall into place.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, some loyalists will still be killing each other and others will be scratching their heads wondering what their purpose is now.

The role of the Ulster Unionists and SDLP in all this might be little more than bit parts. Empey is reduced to complaining that the UUP can't hold the process to ransom any longer, while if Eddie McGrady represents the SDLP position, it doesn't appear much different from unionism's cynicism.

According to the report -

Officers have also carried out 63 searches in connection with the feud and are also carrying out a security operation in Holywood, County Down.

Three police and Army checkpoints have also been set up around the estate.

Police said the operation was to prevent a repeat of scenes in the Garnerville estate in east Belfast when the UVF forced LVF members to leave.

There's no indication of how long they can continue that kind of approach to the problem though..

By Jeff Dudgeon:

Tonight Tuesday 26 July) Lisburn City Council debated for some 40 minutes its decision to ban gays from using the Cherry Room for civil partnership ceremonies.

Cllr Patricia Lewsley (SDLP) raised the issue which had been passed without comment at the council's last meeting when a subcommittee's minutes were agreed. Cllr Seamus Close (Alliance) had at that time proposed that the council's wedding room be denied to gays and lesbians.

Cllr Close and Cllr David Archer both apologised for their absence tonight.

Cllr Lewsley pointed out that the Cherry Room was used for numerous meetings as well as for registry office weddings. She had reported the matter to the Equality Commission (as has a Sinn Fein member) as being in violation of the section 75 duty on public authorities not to discriminate against gays etc without good cause. No alternative location for civil partnerships has been chosen (perhaps a broom cupboard?) in place of the Cherry Room. She was accused of 'running to outside bodies' and being 'the patron saint of lost causes'.

Alderman Edwin Poots (DUP) said civil partnerships were not weddings and that the new law was ‘wrong and immoral and sticks in the throat'.

Cllr Ronnie Crawford (UUP) launched an impassioned attack on the unnatural practice of homosexuality quoting extensively from Cardinal Ratzinger and his predecessor as Pope saying gay marriage was an ‘ideology of evil’ and that homosexuality was ‘intrinsically disordered’. He said he ‘resented the gay lobby' trying to change everything though he did not mind if acts were carried out behind closed doors. He was entirely disgusted by gay websites that he had happened across in researching this issue.

Cllrr Paul Butler (Sinn Fein) said the 'council has an inability to protect diversity' and asked was it any wonder its reputation was so low. Mention was made to muffled titters (except from the DUP who tittered throughout most of the debate) that there were gays in all the council’s political parties.

Asked by Cllr Basil McCrea (UUP) whether the ban was lawful, the Chief Executive said he had sought a legal opinion which confirmed that the decision was 'in order'.

Deputy Mayor Lunn (Alliance) said he had supported the original motion and still had 'no problem' with the ban and that the Alliance Party was 'united' on the issue. Cllr Peter O'Hagan (SDLP) was stated to have abstained in the initial subcommittee vote. Cllr Michael Ferguson (Sinn Fein) said the council 'always managed to find a way to discriminate'.

Alderman Jeffrey Donaldson (DUP) said he was horrified that an early day motion* had been tabled in the House of Commons condemning Lisburn’s policy. He proposed that the Speaker be written to correcting the factual inaccuracy in the motion. Lisburn had not banned ceremonies just the use of a particular room. He regretted that the council had had to provide for civil partnership ceremonies at all as he had fought tirelessly in committee against the Bill that permitted them being extended to Northern Ireland.

The Mayor agreed to write to the Speaker accordingly although Mr Donaldson as an MP is quite at liberty to table an amendment to the motion if he could be bothered.

The Equality Commission which now has CoSO convenor, James Knox, as a member is likely to rule on the matter and oblige the council to reverse its mean minded policy banning gays from using the Cherry Room. This may take a few months yet. A freedom of information request to inspect the council’s legal opinion has already been lodged.

In December, Northern Ireland will be the first part of the UK to have a civil partnership ceremony as the law takes effect here a day earlier than in Britain. The Cherry Room will be penetrated.

[*EDM 636 proposed by Rudy Vis MP and six others ‘That this House notes that the London Borough of Bromley and Lisburn City Council have announced they will not be offering ceremonies for civil partnerships; condemns this decision; and calls upon the Government to take action to address this situation.’]

From Vincent Browne's opinion piece in today's Irish Times -

The IRA is not going to disband. The IRA is not going to end what is called criminal activity, not for now anyway. The IRA may decommission most of its weapons but it will retain some, writes Vincent Browne.

Senior members of Sinn Féin will continue to be involved in the IRA. More than likely there will be some internal rearrangements which will perpetuate the IRA in some other guise, allowing deniability and cover. And for many people, were they to appreciate all that, this would be unacceptable. They would be mistaken.[emphasis added]

To get an idea of where Vincent Browne is coming from you may need to re-read his benign theory of events

Back to today's article

What matters now is not an IRA statement announcing disbandment or an end to operations or full decommissioning or commitment to solely peaceful methods. There is another test, a far more important test, a test, which, if met, would be truly transformative.

Policing.

Policing has been the big issue for a decade and remains the big issue. Everything else is a ball of smoke. Decommissioning doesn't matter - it never did.[emphasis added]

This argument has been put forward before.. and I'm still not convinced by it -

If republicans are tied into policing all other issues fade away. And by being tied in I mean the following: that they give their total support to policing; that they urge their members and supporters and society generally to co-operate with the police force in the prevention and detection of all acts that are against the law (let's not get tangled up in the semantics of criminality - all action, that is, against the law as the law now is, is what matters); that they agree no other organisations have any authority to enforce anything other than the police force and the courts; that "punishment beatings" be reported to the police along with all information on who were involved; that members, supporters and others are urged to give information to the police on all breaches of the law, ie to "inform".

This won't stop criminality, won't stop all "punishment beatings", won't end the IRA as an organisation. But it will or would be transformative for it would mean an acceptance of the democratic institutions of the state, notably the police force, as the sole legitimate institutions, demanding unequivocal allegiance.

Of course there will be fudges and equivocations on this for a while at least - only the appointment of a Sinn Féin minister in charge of security would end the fudges and we would then see a law and order which many of us liberals might not like at all.[emphasis added]

He skips quickly on from what seems an ominous statement, in which I suspect that he's actually implying that only a really hard-line Minister for Justice can get to grips with this society's problems.. to blame the political culture -

The problem is not so much with the IRA or republicans generally, it is to do with the political culture.

There is a danger that when republicans are found to have engaged in further criminality, the whole process will be discredited because of a failure to appreciate that transformations are not sudden - they take time, lots of time.

The problem with this argument, as well as the further indulgences in the ongoing process it requires, is that Vincent [the liberal?] is putting the cart before the horse - for how can any society accept the word of any organisation claiming to be committed to policing while it continues to operate on the basis of, in Browne's own words, "some internal rearrangements which will perpetuate the IRA [or any other organisation] in some other guise, allowing deniability and cover" for continued criminal activity? And how can any society then continue to accept that fiction while that organisation takes hold of the post of Minister for Policing and Justice?

As I've already said, Vincent Browne's seeming preference for benign scenarios permeates the article - in contrast, perhaps, to Gerry Gregg's noting of Browne's interpretations of other events

But it's also worth noting that the process he suggest fits, even more closely, the contrived divorce scenario.

In short, expect more ambiguity, and more crises, ahead.

By Gerry Gregg

Joanna Mathers was just 25 years old in the spring of 1981. She was a first class honours graduate from Queen’s University, married to a farmer, when she decided to earn some extra money by collecting census forms in Derry city. One evening, she was helping a family in Anderson’s Crescent with their return when a masked man dashed up to the doorway. He wrenched the clipboard from her hands, put a gun to her head and fired. The young mother died at the scene.

The Provisional IRA at first denied any involvement. Its Derry brigade – led, at that time, by Martin McGuinness – claimed that Joanna’s murder was ‘an attempt to discredit the (electoral) campaign of Bobby Sands’. Sands was bidding to become the Westminster MP for Fermanagh/South Tyrone, in a by-election that would, in time, radically transform the politics of Ireland. The IRA statement made no mention of ‘securocrats’ – the term had not yet been invented – but otherwise, the strategy of initially disclaiming certain acts of violence has become all too familiar. It emerged later that the weapon used to murder Joanne Mathers could be forensically linked to two punishment shootings that had been acknowledged by the Derry IRA. But that emerged only after Bobby Sands had been elected to Westminster.

Later that year, the story of Joanna Mathers was told on RTE television. Tish Barry and Joe Little filmed a documentary for the current affairs programme Today Tonight, with Joanna’s family and the relatives of other forgotten casualties of terrorism. Not all of these had been killed or maimed by the IRA. In fact, the film was evenly divided between IRA victims and those of loyalist paramilitaries and the security forces. ‘Victims of Violence’ gave parity of esteem to all those who had suffered from terror, and was a landmark in the establishment of Today Tonight as one of RTE’s flagship programmes. It generated a huge public reaction, went on to win a Torc at the Celtic Film Festival and became one of the very few Irish TV programmes ever to be nominated for a prestigious Emmy Award – the TV equivalent of the Oscars.

But not everyone appreciated the value of the programme. The following year, the programme was singled out for a disparaging attack in the pages of this magazine. Vincent Browne, who was then Editor of Magill, claimed that the film had been commissioned by Joe Mulholland, as Editor of Today Tonight, with the specific purpose of working as ‘an antidote to H-Block propaganda’. He argued that, in telling the story of Joanna and her fellow victims, the film had been ‘slanted’ against the Provisional IRA. He proceeded to lay the foundations for a conspiracy theory that has persisted till this day, by claiming that the film was evidence that Today Tonight was being run by members of what was then known as Sinn Fein/the Workers’ Party.

Browne claimed to have examined 55 broadcasts of Today Tonight, which had dealt with Northern Ireland, and to have discovered in them tangible evidence of biased coverage ‘on the national question’. He noted that John Cushnahan, the leader of the Alliance Party – whom he dismissed as an ‘unknown’ – had appeared on nine programmes, and that Harold McCusker, the Deputy Leader of the Unionist Party, had appeared ten times. For Browne, this contrasted suspiciously with the sixteen appearances of the SDLP leaders, John Hume and Seamus Mallon. In fact, all it revealed was Browne’s own bias. Given that the Unionist Party was then the largest political grouping in Northern Ireland, it could be argued that it had actually been under-represented on Today Tonight.

But, for Browne, it seems, any approach to Northern Ireland that did not coincide with his own was evidence of a conspiracy. He described the politics of the Alliance Party, for example, as ‘almost identical’ to those of Sinn Fein/the Workers’ Party. Many Unionists would also have been surprised to learn that, in Browne’s eyes, there was ‘no perceptible difference’ between their party and SFWP. From this perspective, Browne felt justified in publishing the names of six individuals working in Today Tonight, whose views he claimed were ‘very similar’ to those of SFWP.

To the best of my knowledge, none of those named by Browne were members of any political party – though I would have considered at least two of them to be broadly sympathetic to Fine Gael. But, perhaps, Browne believed that the views of Fine Gael were also ‘identical’ to those of SFWP.

In 1982, I was one of those named by Browne. Since then, I have, like the others named, enjoyed a long and relatively successful career, as well as international recognition – including an Emmy – in the world of television. Nonetheless, to some extent, his tainted accusations have coloured much of what we have achieved. Indeed, it has helped to create a myth that has been reproduced and developed in many subsequent analyses of RTE’s current affairs output in the 1980s.
Even Browne has acknowledged that Today Tonight was the most successful and influential current affairs series ever produced by RTE. It did not gain that influence by producing timid and fearful programmes. In fact, the truth was precisely the opposite. The record of the series is a story of bold, committed and pioneering broadcasting. But that is not the story that is being told to students of the period.

The narrative, which informs many contemporary analyses of RTE in the 1980s, is dominated by the issue of Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act – which excluded Sinn Fein, and spokespersons for all other paramilitary groups, from access to the airwaves. According to this narrative, Section 31 produced a ‘climate of fear’ in RTE.

Censorship, secrecy and careerism were the order of the day. This abdication of journalistic responsibility and courage, it is alleged, effectively delayed the onset of the ‘peace process’, and undermined the Irish public’s faith in RTE.

I repudiate this false narrative – which, I believe, profoundly distorts the historical record and, in that process, also maligns the reputation of a group of principled and talented programme-makers. Those who sought to scrutinise the war aims of the IRA, during a terrible period in our history, do not need to feel ashamed. We were properly enjoined by our contracts of employment with RTE to promote ethnic tolerance and respect for the different cultural traditions on this island.

We were also compelled not to allow sectarian hatred to go out on air unchallenged. I believe that we fulfilled those fundamental obligations. In so doing, I believe we advanced the cause of peace in Ireland – since we contributed to a growing acceptance in the Republic that Irish unity could only be achieved, if ever, through peaceful consent.

In the early 1980s, there were more than 80 producers and directors on the RTE payroll. There are now less than half of that number, but, back then, almost all TV production was in-house and producers were the pivotal editorial grade. All other editorial and production staff worked under their creative guidance. Their ‘job spec’ described them as the ‘authors’ of all RTE TV programmes. Again, to the best of my knowledge, only two producers were ever members of the Workers Party. Eoghan Harris, and myself even our most trenchant critics could not claim that we tried to conceal our political sympathies.

RTE’s TV producers had been chosen specifically for their leadership capabilities. What is more, virtually all of them had, at some stage, worked in Northern Ireland. The idea that such a large body of highly intelligent and informed individuals could be manipulated for years into following the ‘line’ of a very small political party is quite absurd. The truth is that the vast majority of RTE producers reflected the politics of the country at large. There were some Provo sympathisers, but, in the main, they were opposed to the campaign of sectarian violence waged by the IRA. This led the majority of TV producers, in turn, to support the operation of Section 31.

In this, RTE’s producers were also representative of a broad swathe of political opinion – which included Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and Labour – and, for that matter, the rest of RTE’s 2,000-strong work force. Section 31 was a near-unanimous expression of Ireland’s democratic rejection of those who sought to achieve territorial unity at the point of a gun. Most of those who worked on Today Tonight were part of the consensus on this issue – and on this issue alone. On any other issue – such as economic policy, Ronald Reagan or the European Union – there was no such consensus. There were also many events – such as the Stardust inferno, or the Kerry babies case, or the Buttevant rail disaster – which stretched the broadcasting talents of the production team to the limits. On the occasion of these challenges, there was no place for party politics.

Strange as it may seem to those who saw agents of the Workers Party everywhere in RTE, during the 1980s, the only party in Dail Eireann that was actually committed to rescinding Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act was the Workers’ Party. Both myself and Harris found ourselves at loggerheads with this opportunist stance. However much to our satisfaction, the Party’s Deputies failed repeatedly to gain support from any other TDs. For as long as the Provisional IRA was prepared to slaughter innocent Protestants like Joanna Mathers, I was delighted and relieved that Dail Eireann annually and overwhelmingly renewed the ban on IRA spokespersons.

Recent accounts of the 1980s in RTE have given a deeply misleading interpretation of RTE’s coverage of the IRA’s war in Northern Ireland. Mark O’Brien has claimed that there was an ‘asphyxiation of debate’ in RTE, which rendered the station incapable of explaining the Northern conflict. John Horgan – a former Labour Party member of the Oireachtas – has praised the ‘courage’ of those within RTE who opposed the ban on IRA spokepersons. Judged by the same criteria by which he judges others, Horgan is clearly a coward – since he never found the guts to vote against Section 31, when he was a member of the Labour Parliamentary Party.

Ray MacManus’s biography of President McAleese claims that she believes her time in Today Tonight was ‘the worst period of her life’. Her period on the programme coincided with the H-Block crisis, and it seems clear that she had a rough time with Joe Mulholland. Due to her personal background, she also had an emotional connection with some of those centrally involved in the lethal drama being played out at the Maze. Her first cousin, John Pickering, had been sentenced for the murder of a garage owner, 77-year-old William Creighton. He was the last Provo lingering on hunger strike when Adams and the rest of the IRA Army Council called off the protest – with ten men dead, and the Fermanagh/South Tyrone Westminster seat safely in Sinn Fein hands.

Apparently Joe Mulholland now believes that he underestimated the emotions generated within the Nationalist community in Northern Ireland at the time of the hunger strikes. I don’t buy his retraction – even if it is only partial. I am proud that, under his editorship, Today Tonight resisted the temptation to respond to the Northern crisis in predictably sectarian terms. As Bobby Sands was dying for Ireland, his comrades were killing innocents - like Joanna Mathers - for Ireland too.

Many of the new producers, reporters and researchers were like me: young Arts graduates, recruited by RTE in the late 1970s from UCD. The Belfield campus had been in a state of political ferment during most of that decade. There were active branches of all the main parties – and I was a member of one of them: the Labour Party. But there were also a host of ultra-left and Trotskyite sects - such as the Revolutionary Marxist Group, Revolutionary Struggle and the League for a Workers’ Republic. These and other groupings gave what they termed ‘critical support’ to the murderous activities of the Provisional IRA. I remember in 1976, when ten Protestant workers had been lined up and mown down by the South Armagh Provos, that one student Trotskyite hailed the slaughter as a ‘progressive massacre’. Four years later, that student was working as a radio producer in RTE.

I joined RTE in 1979. I was 22 years old, with a first class honours degree in history and politics, and in the middle of an MA thesis. I had applied to RTE through a public competition, and had survived two harsh and searching interviews by the most senior members of RTE’s Programmes Division. I was about to commence an equally rigorous training course that would last the best part of a year, and which would, in turn, be followed by a year’s probation experience. I state all this in order to counter the impression that my entry to RTE was also part of some conspiracy, and that I ﷓ and sundry others - were smuggled into the station at the dead of night, complete with counterfeit currency and false identity papers.

The RTE that I joined was a powerhouse of creative energy and aesthetic endeavour. The Drama department was a hive of activity, and about to commence the filming of Strumpet City – a series which was eventually sold to more than two dozen other countries. The Features department was producing radical and important documentaries on an eclectic range of subjects. Sean O Mordha was about to win Ireland’s first Emmy for his film on James Joyce. In Entertainment, The Live Mike had just introduced the biting satire of Dermot Morgan to a TV audience. Gay Byrne was at the height of his broadcasting powers, and The Late Late Show was positioned at the cutting-edge of social change in Ireland. There was, however, one critical area of RTE’s output which was languishing in the doldrums.

During my training period, I was briefly assigned to the current affairs programme Frontline. If ever a programme failed to live up to the promise of its title, it was Frontline. What should have been a flagship series was largely ignored by the Government of the day. The reason that the Government felt they could ignore Frontline was because they knew that was precisely what the Irish public was also doing. The lack of connection with its audience rendered the programme impotent.

My other memory of my assignment to Frontline was the bright morning when news broke of the IRA man Gerard Tuite’s jailbreak from an English prison. One producer dashed hotfoot from the canteen with this piece of intelligence and then wondered aloud whether or not ‘we could do anything to help the poor hoor?’

In October 1980, I was transferred from working on a sports programme to the new current affairs series that was intended to replace the failed entity of Frontline. It was to be broadcast four nights a week and was to be called Today Tonight – a title which had been suggested by Tish Barry.

From the beginning, it was a campaigning programme. From the beginning, it set out to ruffle official feathers and subject those with power in Ireland to unprecedented critical scrutiny. Much of its agenda was focused on the most critical social issues of the day. Over a period of several years, Today Tonight systematically questioned the confessional laws operating in this State, which prohibited divorce, contraception and gay sex and which gave the Catholic Church a major role in determining Health and Education services. The series also illuminated the unravelling of the traditional fabric of rural Ireland, and the disintegration of civil society in some of the sink estates of our cities.

The programme remains the best source of insight into the corrupt and paranoid leadership of Charlie Haughey – who loathed Today Tonight, but felt compelled to appear regularly on it. The programme recorded in great detail the pressures that produced the irrevocable split with Des O’Malley, and left Garret FitzGerald as the chief defender of the nation’s welfare at a time of great peril. The programme was exciting to watch and hugely popular because it placed itself at the heart of the nation’s concerns. In one memorable week in 1983, the top five places in RTE’s Top Ten programmes was held by different editions of Today Tonight.

Of course, there had been previous current affairs series – such as 7 Days – which had also been highly successful. What was different about Today Tonight was that its first year of transmission coincided with the H-Block death fasts, and the election of Bobby Sands to Westminster. That, in turn, signalled the rise of Sinn Fein as an effective political front for the criminal conspiracy that is the Provisional IRA. The H-Block crisis prevented Haughey from retaining power in 1981, and led to a period of great political instability with three general elections in just 18 months.

There were around 40 editorial and production staff working on Today Tonight. We all met together every Friday for a meeting with Joe Mulholland. This involved an open pitching session – in which producers and reporters would discuss what stories they thought should feature in the editions of the following week.

These meetings were invariably lengthy. They were often passionate. Very occasionally, they were unpleasant. Ideas were raised, argued over and a final decision was taken by Joe Mulholland – in open view of the entire programme team. That was one of Mulholland’s crucial strengths as an editor: you might not have agreed with his decisions, but you knew why they had been reached. Friday evening usually concluded with most of those who had been at the meeting having a drink (or two) together.

Although he never worked on the programme, John Horgan still states that Today Tonight ‘left little room for those nationalists … who were opposed both to the IRA and to British Government policy’. The facts, however, simply do not bear out this claim. Between 1980 and 1986, RTE broadcast more than 1,000 editions of Today Tonight. An analysis of their content reveals that the Northern politician who most often appeared on the programme was John Hume. In fact, his appearances outnumbered the combined total of all varieties of Unionist spokespersons. The Northern politician who featured most often after Hume was the Deputy Leader of his party, Seamus Mallon.

The SDLP opposed both the IRA and British Government policy, and was, at that time, the first choice of the Catholic electorate in the North. The figures indicate that, if anything, Today Tonight showed a consistent bias in favour of Hume’s party. And even Vincent Browne has never claimed that the SDLP was ‘identical’ to the Workers’ Party.

I suppose that I should not be surprised by the slipshod nature of Horgan’s empirical research. According to Horgan, I was a ‘reporter’ on Today Tonight – who was transferred to the Young People’s Department because a film that I made about Finglas ‘provoked allegations of Workers’ Party influence’. The most basic check would have established that I never worked as a reporter on Today Tonight or anywhere else. The reporter on the Finglas film, which I produced, was Forbes McFaul. He went on to win a Jacob’s Award for his work on that film. It is true, however, that I fell foul of Fianna Fail as a result of another film that I produced. The film in question dealt with the deontas (grant) culture that had developed around Udaras na Gaeltachta, and it greatly displeased a senior Government Minister: one P Flynn. In the light of subsequent events, I find it ironic that a film about political and financial corruption should have aroused his indignation.

None of the recent accounts of Today Tonight convey the editorial meritocracy and robust egalitarianism that were a feature of the early years of the programme. Instead, they fixate upon the mysterious influence which Eoghan Harris is believed to have exerted over its editorial staff. Harris never worked on the programme. So far as I am aware, Eoghan never set foot in its offices. In fact, for most of its early years, he had been commissioned by RTE to write a number of drama scripts, and spent much of his time in West Cork working on these and other projects. In other words, he had his own creative life to lead while we were working flat out to meet our deadlines, night after night.

Horgan and others seem to believe that RTE producers and broadcast journalists could not reach any conclusions on their own - without either a political party or a Svengali-like figure telling them what to think.

In recent months, some former senior IRA men, like Richard O’Rawe, have given accounts of the hunger strikes which confirm the beliefs which some of those working on Today Tonight formed on their own almost 25 years ago. According to O’Rawe, the leadership of the Republican movement gambled with the lives of the hunger strikers. In his book, The Blanketmen, O’Rawe reluctantly concludes that six of the ten men who died need not have done so. He argues that the election of Owen Carron to the Westminster seat that Sands had held, was more important to the IRA leadership than the lives of its starving volunteers. Perhaps Vincent Browne now believes that O’Rawe was a Workers’ Party sleeper all along.

I left RTE in 1986 - after annoying CJ Haughey’s Fianna Fail for a second time. On this occasion, I had produced a film to mark Fianna Fail’s 60th anniversary, and it raised some basic questions about the integrity of the Boss. I had also incurred Fianna Fail’s anger by persuading its former leader, Jack Lynch, to break his silence and give a film interview. It was to be the last TV interview he ever gave, and it did not please the party that he once led. Fianna Fail not only banned me from filming in their Mount Street offices, they also instructed all Party members not to speak to me. Twenty years later, Lynch’s reputation remains intact. Haughey’s has been utterly discredited.

Back in 1986, Haughey had warned RTE that he would shake the station to its foundations if he were re-elected. Once again, I was earmarked for a ‘safe’ programme department. This time, however, I decided to jump ship and set up a production company that would be avowedly Marxist in orientation. I did not know it then, but that move was to begin a journey that would lead me away from many of the political beliefs that I had embraced for most of my adult life. Looking back, I am all too aware of the naivety of some of those beliefs. Part of me wishes that I had broken out of their framework a good deal earlier. But I have never wavered in my view that the IRA constitutes a real and present danger to the welfare of all of us living on this island.

Despite the IRA being imp