The Patriot Game

A SERIES of peace rallies is going on in the Republic of Ireland, beginning with a rally on March 28 that filled O’Connell Street in Dublin with an estimated twenty thousand demonstrators. The rallies are directed against political violence in general, but specifically and primarily against the IRA’s armed struggle against Britain in the name of the people of Ireland.

The demonstrations were precipitated by the previous week’s IRA explosions at a shopping center in Warrington, Cheshire, which cost the lives of two children. The Irish media initially played the story down, but it was forced to the front by a great wave of popular indignation. For the public, Warrington became the potent symbol of a cruel and futile “war,” waged in our name without any mandate from us. For a long time now—and especially since the Armistice Day bombing at Enniskillen in November 1987—the IRA has had very little support in the Republic. In the last general election its political front—Sinn Fein—won less than 2 per cent of the popular vote. The general rejection of the IRA is now more articulate and insistent than ever before.

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Conor Cruise O'Brien

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A SERIES of peace rallies is going on in the Republic of Ireland, beginning with a rally on March 28 that filled O’Connell Street in Dublin with an estimated twenty thousand demonstrators. The rallies are directed against political violence in general, but specifically and primarily against the IRA’s armed struggle against Britain in the name of the people of Ireland.

The demonstrations were precipitated by the previous week’s IRA explosions at a shopping center in Warrington, Cheshire, which cost the lives of two children. The Irish media initially played the story down, but it was forced to the front by a great wave of popular indignation. For the public, Warrington became the potent symbol of a cruel and futile “war,” waged in our name without any mandate from us. For a long time now—and especially since the Armistice Day bombing at Enniskillen in November 1987—the IRA has had very little support in the Republic. In the last general election its political front—Sinn Fein—won less than 2 per cent of the popular vote. The general rejection of the IRA is now more articulate and insistent than ever before.