(O'Brien Press Dublin 1995) Reviewed by David Coen THE WAR IS OVER and there will be no resumption of armed struggle by the IRA. There will be a "long peace" concludes O'Brien. thinking come after the failed cease-fire of the mid-1970swhen the British came close to military victory-the prison protest, the hunger strikes, election victories. Libyan arms, the attacks on the City and the Hume/Adams son for the cease fire is the acceptance by the IRA that a ish is not possible: that the ourcome of the "long war" strategy will be a stalemate rather than pull-out by a war wcary briam In other words, he believes the IRA have simply given The leadership have no deto see their own offspring carry on a futile battle. There is also the risk of heightened loyalist violence aided and life".
O'Brien works for Radio -we Bet minder. He purge himself of any hint of The author's journalist and details but short on analy.
the British left. guaranteeing the position of North. It was deliberately deafter the Hunger Strikes. how Northern Ireland can run its affairs within the United Kingdom: "The Republic of Ireland has a crucial role, not as a rival for sovereignty, but a partner in ending violence to the decencies of democratic The Downing Street declaration and the Framework political gains made by Dublin and London in the 1985 Because Republicans think of politics as simply a lactic within the armed strugwere completely which was portrayed as a step women's movement or those to unity-even by some on struggling for lesbian and gay In the crucial arena of the The fruits of the "pressure South, republican politics Fianna Fail strategy" were consisted simply of a combi- tasted when Albert Reynold nation of the community- successfully. demanded that based approach leamt in the North, with attempts to pres- be a temporary cease-fire was ship by appeals to its This in retur for an invita. nationalist consciousness. tion to the "nationalist famIn deferring to the rural. ily" of Dublin and the SDLP. small town and Catholic who find themselves relying prejudices at the base of Fi- on Dublin to negotiate on anna Fail, it could not link with any of the dynamic so- Dublin's deal with the British. cial forces in the South, such For many years now the as the working class. the Dublin approach has not been