A Spectator's Notebook
THE GOVERNMENT of the Republic of Ireland is in the same uneasy position as certain neighbouring governments of being charged with foreknowledge, connivance, and even collusion. Foreknowledge of an outbreak of violence 'on the Northern Ireland border there certainly was; the Irish republican organ- isations have a fair crop of informers in their ranks. There was also connivance, in that the Government did not care, or did not dare, to take preventive action. And although I do not doubt Mr. Costello's sincerity when he denounces the Irish Republican Army—his party has gradually been won round to the view that the North cannot be won by force—I doubt his capacity to handle the present crisis. His Government is too weak to take firm action. In the circumstances, Lord Brooke- borough has had no choice but to take measures to seal up-- and possibly in places seal off—the border. I am sorry that he has been compelled to take them : it is a sad setback to the prospects of amity (let alone unity) between North and South. Still, the recent outbreak may produce one good result. So little was achieved that even in the South, where such adventures still get far more support than they should, the IRA must be discredited. The danger remains that the IRA, to assert itself, will revert to the vicious campaign of the type it tried out in Britain shortly before the last war. If it does, the Costello Government will have a lot to answer for.
Previous page
