Suspending disbelief in IRA opens vista of hope for Northern Ireland

THERE comes a time in Disney films when you have to suspend disbelief. That moment arrived yesterday for Northern Ireland, and this island as a whole, with the declaration by the IRA that it has ended its armed campaign and all that it implies.

If it's nothing but a scam, then nothing will have changed.

But it is far more worthwhile to suspend disbelief and take the statement on its face value because it opens up a vista of hope for Northern Ireland.

There are definite pointers as to why, eventually, the IRA will deliver. When they do, there will be so many claiming to have had a hand in bringing it about, that they will make the GPO post-1916 positively empty!

Pragmatically, it would be impossible for Sinn Féin to repair the damage it would to itself if the IRA renege, having aligned itself so closely with the eventual promise that what happened yesterday would happen.

The statement came as a direct result of Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams in April of this year calling on them to use exclusively political means and he subsequently said he was confident that the IRA would take the debate forward with all the seriousness it deserved.

They obviously did.

At the time he said that Irish republicanism, like the peace process, was at a defining point.

Importantly, from Mr. Adams' point of view, so is Sinn Féin because if this initiative goes all pear-shaped, he can kiss goodbye to ever hopping into bed with Bertie Ahern, in a coalition, that is.

Should that happen, all that will be decommissioned will be Sinn Féin, at least politically. Their lá would never tiocfaidh, so to speak.

Both the Taoiseach and British Prime Minister Tony Blair acknowledged its significance, and both of them have been stand-offish of late with Sinn Féin, especially since the Northern Bank robbery in December and the appalling murder of Robert McCartney a month later.

For both of them to endorse the IRA statement means they are convinced of the sincerity of the organisation in doing what it said it would.

Mr. Blair went so far to describe it as "a step of unparalleled magnitude."

President Mary McAleese expressed the feelings of most ordinary people has expressed her hope that it would help to secure the long-term, peaceful, respectful co-existence of this and all future generations of people on this island, from every tradition and perspective.

She said it offered real opportunity to build the trust and mutual understanding on which a just, equitable and peaceful future will rest and hoped that, in the interest of generations to come, this opportunity would now be well and wisely used.

It's a pity Justice Minister Michael McDowell wasn't just as gracious and less begrudging when he welcomed the statement.

While acknowledging it was a step forward, he said he noted that the statement did not disband the IRA.

He said it remained an unlawful organisation and he was concerned that a proscribed organisation was still in existence.

I may be wrong, but I think it was envisaged that the organisation would eventually just become a commemorative organisation.

That step included the unprecedented move in that all units were ordered to dump arms. All Volunteers were instructed to assist the development of purely political and democratic programmes through exclusively peaceful means. Volunteers must not engage in any other activities.

In dumping their arms and weapons, the IICD will verify it but there can be two independent witness, as well, from the Catholic and Protestant Churches.

If that sounds familiar, you would be right because it was proposed before, at least about a quantity of arms. That proposal was subverted by Ian Paisley when, among other things, he demanded that the occasion be photographically recorded.

There was no way that was going to happen and it didn't, but neither did the decommissioning.

Given what the IRA committed itself to yesterday, one would imagine that Mr. Paisley might just might have the wit to realise that they at least would try and not try the same old stunt.

But no sooner had the statement been read than he was ranting about the decommissioning of weapons being witnessed through photographic evidence and the presence of independent witnesses.

IN no uncertain manner, the two governments should make it clear to Mr. Paisley that he would be better employed getting the loyalist paramilitaries to do the same as the IRA, instead of being a barrier to progress.

His problem, obviously, is that the IRA will deliver and in time the Good Friday Agreement, which he vehemently opposed, will be back on track again leading, eventually, to devolved government again in Northern Ireland.

That means he will be forced to fraternise with the likes of republicans, which is anathema to him. Direct rule from London suits him and his ilk, and if it keeps the republicans out, that's good enough for him.

Ian Paisley labours under the illusion that what's best for his supporters is best for Northern Ireland.

Instead of receiving the decision by the IRA with caution, his first instinct was to dismiss it out of hand.

"The history of the past decade in Northern Ireland is littered with IRA statements which we were told were historic, ground-breaking and seismic. "These same statements were followed by the IRA reverting to type and carrying out more of its horrific murders and squalid criminality," he said.

However, for the past decade Northern Ireland has been largely quiet, since the IRA ceasefire of 1994. Most of the disruption to the community as a whole, in that time, came from loyalists.

A more measured, cautious and tolerant response came from Ulster Unionist Party leader, Sir Reg Empey. Understandably, he said it would take time to convince the people of Northern Ireland that this was more than just rhetoric, because people had been burnt so many times before.

Maybe now, those "dreary steeples of Fermanagh and Tyrone," as Winston Churchill once described them, might take on a new aspect.

"But as the deluge subsides and the waters fall short, we see the dreary steeples of Fermanagh and Tyrone emerging once again," he said, at a time when the whole map of Europe had changed because of war and "the integrity of their quarrel is one of the few institutions that has been unaltered in the cataclysm which has swept the world."

Maybe, the quarrel is at least winding down. What the IRA did yesterday will certainly facilitate a healing of wounds in a community that has suffered inordinately.