The IRA and the Barrooms of America

...Unlike many Americans, the dissidents know, as Tocqueville said, that "despotism often presents itself as the repairer of all the ills suffered, the supporter of just rights, defender of the oppressed, and founder of order...

...Even those figures may not sound extraordinary in a century hardened to huge statistics of violent death...

...Some have been brutal, like the shooting of demonstrators on Bloody Sunday and the use" of harsh methods of interrogating suspects (though nowhere- near as brutal as the totally unrestrained violence o'f the IRA...

...But of late, it has been increasingly permeated by Communists and other far-Left characters, a tendency emphasized by its links with terrorist organizations in other countries, with Colonel Quaddafi of Libya, and with one or two governments in Eastern Europe...

...It has not happened like that...

...The cost of this military commitment is about $170 million a year...

...Britain forgets too easily...

...At the least, they must have thought, the hearings would make the current administration aware of the dangers of trying to accommodate itself to so-called progressive regimes, a policy that can only undermine civil rights in the world and thus ultimately hurt the world's poor...

...The British did not wish for partition any more than did the Irish nationali,;ts...

...It is hard for a British writer to write dispassionately about Northern Ireland, and almost as hard for an American audience, let alone an Irish-American audience, to accept that he is trying to write dispassionately--or perhaps "in good faith" would be a better phrase...

...For a hard-pressed economy like Britain's, suffering from congenital overspending by government, this is a considerable burden...

...Ferdinand Mount THE IRA AND THE BARROOMS OF AMERICA Many Irish-Americans think the IRA represents an acceptable political solution to the troubles in Northern Ireland...

...But the IRA today is essentially red, not green...

...But the real change is in the nature of the IRA...

...And the grisly process began...

...The Protestant minority dwin...

...The liberal phase ended...

...That would not be surprising...

...No longer does it rely primarily on an extended network of sympathizers...

...Every time they represent the Irish problem as primarily a political problem to which there is a readily available political solution if only Britain would take it, they are adding authority to the IRA cause and dollars to the IRA coffers...

...If the British government, Labour or Tory, thought it could withdraw the troops or begin to withdraw the troops or announce a date for withdrawing the troops, it would have done so, just as it has withdrawn troops from, and resigned authority over, British colonies and dominions...

...they just do not believe that it is possible at the moment...

...It is often forgotten--in Britain no less than in the United States--that the IRA poses a threat to the whole island of Ireland, for it no more recognizes the government in Dublin than it recognizes the authority of Britain in Northern Ireland...

...There is a final dimension to the development of the Provisional Irish Republican Army over the past few years...

...l ' h c s c dcveh)pmcnts, unavoidable though they may ha,,,(' bt'en, could only in(rc'ase the suspicions of Northern ProtesIHI1P-, Hnd make t h e i r voluntary acceptance ,+f a united Ireland ever less likely...

...And it was "agitation from within, by liberal Northern Protestants--outward-looking businessmen, upper-class Ulstermen with English connections, and students--that responded to and joined in the Catholic clamor for civil rights...

...This i,~ why opinion polls have consistently showtt that the" majority of Catholics, like t h e overwhelmihg majority of Protestants, think direct rule from London is the least b:td way of governing Northern Ireland...

...But it cannot be said that the British governments, both Labour and Tory, have not sought a political solution, or indeed have not tried hard to achieve some measure of agreement that might help to reduce the level of violence and the fears of both communities...

...1 do not criticize the attachment to Irish origins as merely sentimental...

...Ahhough the troops subsequently became very unpopular in the Catholic areas, and have at times been abused, stoned, and shot at as members of an occupying force, the Catholics have never lost their fear of what would happen if the troops were pulled out...

...and Parnell) gradually became h.s~, conspicuous...

...Until recently, British authorities would often speak of "beating" the IRA or of "getting on top of the gunmen...

...But the least bad method of governing at present does seem THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JANUARY 1080 I ~, to be to administer the Province from London as equitably as possible, with the British government trying to maintain law and order by civilian methods as far as possible and reducing to a minimum the use of the British Army...

...it was essentially green, not red...

...If an attempt had been made to force the Protestants mto a united Ireland at that time, the bloodshed would undoubtedly have been infinitely worse...

...The hurried compromise by which the six northeastern counties of Ireland were accommodated within the United Kingdom (but under a separate though subordinate parliament at Stormont) is open to criticism and even regret...

...btu because many Proteslant families ,.,.crc tonrcnt to, accept the Catholic ruling rh,tt in mixed marriages children must be brought up as ('atholics...

...Perhaps guilt, then, has led the current administration, as Jeane Kirkpatrick recently said, to exhibit " a posture of continuous selfabasement and apology vis-~t-vis the Third World," trying to ingratiate itself with all manner of regimes that say they are for "the people...

...What it needs are modern arms and money...

...For 800 years, until 1921, the English ruled the Irish, usually incompetently, sometimes cruelly, and almost always negligently...

...The British Army was sent in...

...At present, Britain has approximately 13,000 troops stationed in Northern Ireland, a large proportion of her shrunken forces...

...W hich leaves us with the question: What can be done about the Provisional IRA...

...The dissidents, on their part, must be puzzled and somewhat contemptuous of Americans, who show so little interest in understanding a question that affects America's standing in the world...

...2 16 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR .JANUARY 1O•0...

...At the same time, cautiously, very cautiously, the British government must begin to explore again the possibilities both of granting a limited measure of self-government, in a way which would not permit a renewal of Protestant domination, and of cooperating with the government of the Irish Republic...

...True, the Catholic ghettoes are desperately weary of the violence and there has been some cooperation on security, although the border is 270 miles long and the Irish security forces are short of men...

...That does not mean that many of them would not in their hearts prefer to live in a united Ireland...

...To this must be added the other costs to the British taxpayer of repairing damage to people and property in Belfast and of maintaining Ferdinand Mount is a columnist for the London Spectator...

...But if Irish-Americans do not wish to aid, however unwittingly, injustice and cruelty in the 1980s, they must come to understand that the only consequence of calling for a political initiative now is to strengthen the IRA and to undermine not only the British efforts to keep the peace, but also the stability of the regime in Dublin...

...Throughout most of its history, the IRA has been an exclusively nationalist organization, in which socialists of various sorts joined in a common military effort with near-fascists and apolitical desperadoes...

...The British governments of the 1960s eagerly encouraged these moves...

...The hearings were a media failure, I suspect, because many Americans find the message of the dissidents embarrassing and discomforting...

...This illusion is perhaps excusable...

...But then, as now, criticism and regret a re incomplete without consideration of the alternatives...

...Suspects were interned...

...These are not heroic or exciting prospects, but the), seem to be the best available-primarily for the Catholics of the North whose future is most at risk...

...the nonsectarian liberal tradition of Irish nationalism (which took its authority from a long line of Protestant hcr~ws, such as Wolfe Tone, Robert I.[mmct...

...It was felt that the revolting cruelty, the extortion, and the appalling slaughter would eventually alienate the Catholic areas from even tacit sympathy for the IRA, with the result that the guerrillas would become, in Mao's image, fish without a sea to swim in...

...American leaders and intellectuals may feel guilty, but Russian dissidents argue that they have nothing to feel guilty about...

...The dissidents, of course, do not think that poverty is nonexistent in the Western democracies, but they know--and argue-that in such countries journalists are free to point out such conditions, and freely elected legislators are able to deliberate about the best way of addressing them...

...But for a small place like Northern Ireland, with a total population of one and a half million, it is the equivalent of four times the number of American deaths in Vietnam...

...Most people in Southern Ireland and in Britain have not taken it in yet either...

...It would not be profitable, particularly for an outsider, to guess how much these interventions are due to the wish to tie up the Irish vote and how much they represent a sincere desire to try to help...

...With cooperation on border security from the South, the guerrillas would also be cut off from their boltholes and base-camps...

...If all the people of the British Isles have reason to be grateful for the continuing generosity of the American people in the rebuilding and defending of Western Europe, this is one kind of generosity we have reason to feel less grateful for...

...l h c British government had, for 30 or 40 years, sh)thfullv turned a blind eye to the discriminatory character of the regime at Stormont...

...Ttlis view presupposes that Britain retains one last inflection of imperialism and that there lies hidden within the British soul some ineradicable desire to rule over the Irish until the end of time...

...It would not be surprising if there did linger some irrational domineering streak in British attitudes, other things being equal...

...The most recent estimate of the Provisional IRA's balance sheet--taken from a British military intelligence report captured by the IRA and made public--goes like this: INCOME Theft in Ireland (principally from bank raids) Racketeering (protection money, illegal businesses) Oversea.,, contributions (mosdy from the United States) Collections for prisoners 550,000 pounds 250,000 pounds 120,000 pounds 30,000 pounds 950,000 pounds EXPENDITURE Pay (wages to supplement British social security, on which most IRA gunmen live) 400.000 pounds Travel and transport 50,000 pounds Newspapers and propaganda 150.000 pounds Prisoners' dependents' welfare 180,000 pounds 780,000 pounds Which leaves 170,000 pounds available for the purchase of arms, ammunition, and explosives...

...this independence would have extended to the whole island of Ireland if the Protestants had not resisted...

...The IRA in its new guise is dedicated to the destruction of the existing government and society in order to build a unified Irish socialist republic upon the corpses of thousands of Irish people, being moreover on thc v~holc indifferent as to how many of thc dead may be Protestants and how man,, Catholics Most lrish-Arnerwan'~ might think that too high a pru:c to pay tot Irish unity...

...It has become a tightly organized, well-trained army deployed in small, independently operating service units of three or four men...

...It is right that those memories should die hard...

...Britain has tried to accommodate these contradictory feelings, most notably by the attempt to impose power-sharing between th,.' Protestant and Catholh: communities in the government of the North and by the development of an All-lrcland ('.ouncil-both of which were swept away by a paralyzing general strike of Protestant workers in May 1974...

...The outsider's conception of any political movement tends to become fixed and to change only with difficulty...

...To put it in graphi( terms, the Catholic familit-,, of Bcffast and l)erry would have had to choose between fleeing to the South or being murdered in their homes...

...When the British troops arrived, the',, arrived to protect the Catholic population and were greeted as protectors...

...lhcrc seems to b c a similar distinction in tile minds t)t the: maiorhy of Southern Catholk s. They too would overwhelmingly like to scc aumted Ireland, but they arc fearful that "the Northern problem" might sprr throughout the island if the British troops were to withdraw...

...They believe the dissidents are entitled to compassion and even admiration, but they also believe that the dissidents are men whose suffering has made them unreasonable and therefore not worthy of being taken seriously...

...If there were an easy solution that could be adopted, even with some small degree of dishonor or some further minimum loss of life, Britain would have adopted it years ago...

...Some hav(" been tardy, like the breaking up of IRA control of I)errv...

...Mr..lack Lynch, Prime Minister until December, and his part,,' reflected both this continued aspiration to unity and the acceptance that the British troops cannot leave--although they were: reluctant to say so too specifically...

...Insofar as the notion of the failure of American nerve means anything, it means that many intellectuals, journalists, and policy-makers feel that the United States in the past did too little to advance the cause of economic and social rights in the world...

...It is strange and sad to realize that Russian dissidents have become the most eloquent defenders of the values of liberal democracy...

...Britain comeded independence to the Irish Republic more than 50 years ago...

...The 1937 constitution declared the national territory to be" "the' whole island of Ireland, its islands and the territorial seas" and recogniz('d "the special position of the Holy Catholic Apostolic an(t Roman Church...

...From the smoking ruins, the chances are that a fortifir set(arian Protestant state would have emerged...

...which con>iders the IRA an illegal organization...

...standards of life and welfare in the province, costs amounting to about $1.8 billion a year...

...The troubles have been going on for ten years now and the rate of killing has diminished only slightly in the last 18 months...

...The :l-,pirafions towards unity of most Northern (i;ith,,lits were hence increasingly regarded as signs of "disloyahy" and were (laimcd by the Protestant majority to lustifv the most blatant acts of discrimination in employment and housing...

...So far, up to the day I write, 1,969 men, women, and children have been killed in the troubles in Northern Ireland...

...Why, the dissidents probably wondered, has not the current administration proudly defended its own heritage, acknowledging the preeminent importance of civil rights...

...In the South...

...T h i s is the reality behind all the alarums and excursions of Hugh Carey, Tip O'Neill, Teddy Kennedy, and Jimmy Carter...

...Only they seem to be certain that without civil rights people have only the slightest chance of bettering themselves...

...The anti-'l'reaty leaders, most notably De Valera, were reabsorbed inlo the' mainstream of Irish politics...

...Or, to put it another way, the dissidents know that despotism often presents itself as the fulfiller of economic and social rights...

...Which is why I begin with the statistics, to b convey some idea of the cost in blood and treasure to the entire British Isles...

...British military intelligence suggests that the total number is no more than 500...

...Some experts believe that the contributions from the United States are considerably higher--quite enough to meet the IRA's entire bill for arms...

...As a result, Britain's NATO forces on the Rhine are perilously overstretched and the troops themselves suffer something like battle fatigue after the third or fourth tour of duty in Northern Ireland...

...1he consequences of the partition that did take place came slowly but ineluctably...

...dl('d to about 5 pcrcent of the Southern population, not because P r o t e s t a n t s tended to emigrate more than Catholics or b,.-~:tusc the,,' were treated unfairly in any wav--whi(h they most definitely were not...

...nor do I underestimate the just sense of grievance which IrishAmericans have inherited from their greatgrandparents who left Ireland after the Famine...

...It left no side conte',,ed and it may well be argued that it provideu a potential source of further conflict...

...The IRA's need for arms and explosives makes it likely that these links will continue and grow...

...I,:i THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JANUARY 1980 But other things are not equal...

...The murder of Lord Mountbatten and the massacre of British soldiers at Warrenpoint demonstrate how technologically advanced the IRA now is...

...But demonstrations turned into riots and riots into bloodshed, partly through the spontaneous combustion of sectarian fears, partly through the calculated engineering of the IRA and certain left-wing groups...

...Some of Britain's actions have bcr foolish, like the time when Nit...

...Whit,.'htw, the North('rn h-e.'hmd Score(at,,, actually talked to the IRA, which horrified Dublin...

...Two points ought to be plucked out from the confused story of the next decade...

...The civil war that did take plate in the South between supporters and opponents of the 1921 Treaty cost as many lives in a few months as the present troubles in the North have cost in ten years...

...Of course, the IRA represents and has the active sympathy of only a tiny minority of the Irish people, but it has not been unknown for a tiny minority to impose Marxist dictatorship bv force of arms in the wake of a bloody civil war...

...The answer, in part, is guilt...

...although it was quite alien to the" law and cu'stom of mainland Britain...

...The IRA does not need men...

...But there is no doubt that the Irish government is already extremely worried about the increasingly totalitarian-Marxist nature of the IRA...

...Most Irish-Americans may not yet be fully aware of this change in the IRA...

...The Irish Republican Army contends that Northern Ireland is just such another colony and that British obstinacy will eventually be overcome there as it was elsewhere...