McCartney women call the shots and Sinn Féin goes on the run

IN fairness to US President George W Bush, he has shown more interest in Ireland than any of his predecessors with the sole exception of Bill Clinton.

That includes Jack Kennedy, who visited this country only once as president, whereas Bush had already made a couple of visits. Maybe he was trying to get the political kudos at home by helping the peace process, but he would have deserved any credit he got for helping the Good Friday agreement. He certainly deserves credit for trying.

There was no doubt from the American standpoint that the big Irish news of the week was the visit of the late Robert McCartney's sisters and partner. At this time of year the Americans are always looking for fresh news about Ireland, and the McCartneys' visit was a novel event. Of course, they weren't the first Irish women to create a bit of a sensation in the US over the Northern Ireland issue.

Bernadette Devlin made a right stir when she went over in 1969. She arrived as the great nationalist hope, newly elected to Westminster, an articulate young woman with something to say, but she proceeded to make a fool of herself by saying all the wrong things.

It was the height of the Vietnam War. She aligned herself with the American anti-war movement, but they did not want her. They were intent on demonstrating that their movement was purely American without any outside influence. By sticking her nose in where it was not wanted she alienated the people who were most likely to sympathise with her.

In the following years she made a number of other visits to the US, but she alienated practically everyone. She was so bitter and caustic that some people suggested she was spitting sulphuric acid.

No doubt the McCartney sisters will evoke memories of the women's peace initiative back in 1976. That began with great hope and even led to the awarding of the Nobel peace prize to Mairéad Corrigan and Betty Williams, but the whole thing came to a screeching halt on the altar of greed.

Thus any current optimism in America is likely to be tempered by the reality of history, but so far the McCartney women have not put a foot wrong. Although Bush and Bertie seemed to play down the McCartney affair in their actual remarks at the White House, the presence of the women undoubtedly overshadowed all the other events. Their blistering condemnation of the IRA criminality cut very deep. "Any romantic vision of the struggle should now be dispelled," the sisters told reporters on Tuesday. "We are now dealing with criminal gangs who are still using the cloak of romanticism to murder people in the street and walk away."

The president made it clear his invitation for them to visit the White House was an expression of his support for their quest for justice. The four US senators they met emphasised the same message. Senator Hillary Clinton stressed that the peace process "cannot go forward unless there is a complete reckoning with the demand for justice in the murder of Robert McCartney". Ted Kennedy went further by calling for the disbanding of the IRA, while John McCain, the Republican senator from Arizona, demonstrated eloquently that he was under no romantic illusions about the IRA.

"No one can honestly claim the IRA is anything better than an organised crime syndicate that steals and murders to serve its members' personal interests," McCain told American-Ireland Fund dinner guests. "There's nothing republican about the Irish Republican Army."

Throughout the 20th century the US played an important role in Irish affairs. Clann na Gael funded Roger Casement's visit to Germany to try to arrange German help for the Easter rebellion.

In the aftermath of the rebellion, it was largely American opinion that prompted the British to call off further executions. Moreover, it was to curry favour with the Americans that the British released all of the internees in December 1916, followed by the jailed leaders in June 1917. People like Eamon de Valera and Thomas Ashe were freed unconditionally barely a year after being sentenced to death.

De Valera considered the Americans so important that he spent the bulk of the War of Independence in the United States. Later, after the formation of Fianna Fáil, one of his first acts was to raise funds for the party in America, and he went back to raise further money to set up the Irish Press.

IN THE 1930s and early 1940s, when the IRA issued statements, they signed them 'J McGarrity.' Unlike the ubiquitous 'P O'Neill' whom nobody seems to know Joe McGarrity was well known as the proprietor of the original Irish Press in Philadelphia.

The IRA thoroughly discredited itself during World War II by conspiring to have the Nazis invade Ireland. They also waged a bombing campaign in Britain in 1939.

That campaign was an utter disaster. It was one of the crazy schemes of Seán Russell, who later died off the west coast in a German U-boat on what was probably another of his crazy schemes.

Does anyone in their right mind think the IRA bombing campaign in Britain had any chance of success, when one thinks of how the Germans, with their infinitely greater bombing capability, failed so miserably? Historians have concluded that German bombing of civilian centres was counter-productive in that it strengthened the morale and determination of the British people.

The IRA made the same mistake again with their bombing campaigns in Britain from the 1970s to the 1990s. The television programme on the Balcome Street gang this week noted that the bombing campaign actually strengthened British resolve. Of course, the British learned little from their mistakes here in the 1920s; they made the same mistakes again in Northern Ireland, thereby allowing Sinn Féin to obtain enormous financial support in the United States.

Times are obviously changing. Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams sounded distinctly rattled as they made what sounded like threatening references to the McCartney sisters this week. Adams was apparently alluding to them when he warned about not allowing "any rogue elements on the fringes of republicanism to criminalise us".

We have had enough bloody lies.

The so-called republicans have criminalised themselves by their own criminal behaviour. Whatever about the Northern Bank raid, they have admitted their involvement in the murder of Robert McCartney. They compounded it by having the criminal audacity to offer to murder others in recompense, and they even had the epic stupidity to brag about their murderous offer. The McCartneys helped to expose this colossal criminality. As a result they pose a political as well as a financial threat to Adams and company, not just in America, but also in Northern Ireland.

If Sinn Féin continues to obstruct justice in the McCartney case, and the IRA persists with the kind of detestable statements issued in recent weeks, one of the McCartney women might be persuaded to stand against Gerry Adams in the forthcoming Westminster general election. She might not beat him, but one thing is certain: he would have the fight of his political life on his hands.