July's announcement that the IRA was ending its military campaign drew a muted response from political quarters north and south of the Irish border. Although the statement was potentially historic by calling on IRA activists to unconditionally dump arms, unionist politicians again reacted skeptically to how decommissioning would take place and be independently verified. The … [Read more...] about Muted Response to IRA Statement
IRA
News: Joe Cahill Laid to Rest
Joe Cahill, former I.R.A. chief of staff, died on July 23 at his Andersonstown home in Belfast after a short illness. The 84-year-old was buried after a huge funeral cortege carried his remains to the Republican plot at Milltown Cemetery. Cahill was honorary vice-president of Sinn Féin, and the party's current president Gerry Adams paid homage to his friend at the … [Read more...] about News: Joe Cahill Laid to Rest
Endgame: The Road to Peace in Northern Ireland
"This is the first time the inside story of the Irish peace process has been told by so many of the major politicians and paramilitary leaders who helped shape it." – WGBH executive producer Zvi Dor-Ner ℘℘℘ Endgame in Ireland, a four-hour PBS special documenting the hard-fought road to peace in Northern Ireland from the onset of The Troubles in the late 1960s to the IRA … [Read more...] about Endgame: The Road to Peace in Northern Ireland
The Last Word: A Pall of Darkness Falls on Belfast
Thank Christ the murdered man was Catholic. No Catholic will say that on the record, but every northern Catholic knows what it means, and no Catholic has to amplify when it is said privately. It means that if Gerard Lawlor, aged 19, shot dead by loyalists last Sunday night [7.21.02] in north Belfast, had been a Protestant, there would have been political hell to pay, and an … [Read more...] about The Last Word: A Pall of Darkness Falls on Belfast
IRA Dispose of Weapons
An historic breakthrough was made in the Northern Ireland peace process at the end of October when the first IRA arms were put permanently beyond use in a move monitored by the International Commission on Decommissioning. In the early hours of October 23 General John de Chastelain oversaw the disposal of what was called a "sizable quantity" of the IRA's weapons, a move which … [Read more...] about IRA Dispose of Weapons