IRELAND

Mr Lynch's hour of crisis

CONSTANTINE FITZGIBBON

Dublin—We have long feared, indeed dreaded, that the recurrence of Irish violence in the north-eastern part of the island might slowly spread southwards into -our snug little, broke little Republic. The attitude towards the disturbances, better described as organised arson and murder, in last sum- mer's Derry and Belfast, was less ambiguous here than schizophrenic. In private most Irishmen, of all classes and almost all political views known to me, have expressed the wish that the Six Counties of Ulster might somehow be detached from the rest of Ireland and that those counties, together with their population whether Catholic or Protestant, be pushed across the Irish sea by some latter-day St Colman to enjoy their welfare state doles in the arms of their English socialist paymasters. In public the politicians speak, usually with caution, about the reunification of Ireland based on an agreement between London, Dublin and Belfast, sometimes invoking that deus ex machina, the Common Market: in private most of the educated politicians admit that they hope the British will have the sense not to join that sinking ship and drag the Irish pinnace down with them into an Act of Union likely to be even more disastrous than that of 1801. But behind all this humbug there have, for the past year and more, been more sinister forces at work.

One is, as usual, international com- munism. The reds crept under the civil rights beds and within a few months were right inside them, like Little Red Riding Hood's grandmother. They have in some measure disrupted the IRA and its political wing, Sinn Fein, in the South, and have no doubt caused similar mischief among the UVF in the North. But they are essentially irrelevant in an Irish situation which is more emotional- historical than marxist-economic. at least at present and for the foreseeable future.

The second force to be reckoned with is the revived- illegal IRA, or Saor Eire as its active splinter group, disowned by the old nu, is now called. Almost moribund two years ago, the IRA, although split, has rapidly recovered both in strength and in determina- tion as a result of anti-Catholic atrocities in the North and the massive armed protection that the Wilson government has given to the Stormont regime. Its aims. have been quite simple: to ensure that the Catholic minority in the North is armed and able to defend itself against any repetition of last year's events. To find the money with which to buy guns, Saor Eire's action groups have been systematically robbing banks both in the Republic and, more recently, in the Six Counties, and have not hesitated to shoot, on one occasion murdering a policeman. They have also received money from America. There have been fairly reliable rumours since last August of Czech weapons going both to the IRA and to the UVF in the North. This would seem to be confirmed by the in- cident which led to the retirement or dismissal of four senior Ministers within the past ten days. The rumour that those Ministers had also diverted public money to the purchase of arms would, on the other hand, seem improbable, not least for purely technical reasons. Such an operation would imply the squaring or silencing of many civil servants at all levels.

How deeply involved were the Ministers in question? Mr Blaney and Mr Boland have long been the most outspoken critics of Mr Lynch's dove-like attitude. It may well be assumed that they would not be ill-disposed towards Republican extremists. Neil Blaney's triumphant motorcade across counties Fer- managh and Derry to his own bailiwick in Donegal on Sunday following his dismissal was a provocative act worthy of the Orange Order at its worst (and the fact that his 'Listen, mate, I don't mind being called a bum—but don't you start calling me a

student!'

procession was escorted and protected by large numbers of British troops added the element of farce never far from the surface in the Irish tragi-comedy).

The ex-Minister for Justice, Mr O'Morain, was the first to be dismissed, allegedly for

unconventional behaviour, rather in the style

of George Brown, at a recent dinner party. However that ex-Minister has been behaving unconventionally at dinner parties for years.

What is more significant is that the Gardai, the Republic's police, have completely failed to catch the bank robbers, let alone bring them to trial. Nor have those emergency powers been invoked which would have en- abled trial—if the men were caught—by court martial rather than by a jury subject to in- timidation and likely to be swayed by anti- Stormont feelings. Somebody, in fact, has been covering up for the robbers and presum- ably for their other actions.

The case of Mr Haughey is far more difficult to understand. In public and, indeed, in private he has steadily supported the Northern policy of the Taoiseach, Mr Lynch. He is far too clever, and was far too important, a politician to stick his head in the noose of conspiratorial illegality. One clue to his dismissal may be a report in the papers that his brother was involved in the gun-running: family feeling runs strong in Ireland. Indeed, at the time of writing it is widely rumoured in Dublin that the brother is under arrest, although there may well be no truth in this. In any event the loss of Charles Haughey is a grievous one to Irish public life: he was the best Minister for Finance since his father-in-law, Sean Lemass, had that Ministry.

It is a tragedy for this country that this crisis has arisen, particularly at a time when renewed strife in the North has already begun. There is no alternative government, and the credibility of Fianna Fail, both in foreign eyes and, perhaps more important, in Irish eyes as well, is severely damaged, even if the party manages somehow not to split. At the best of times the Irish distrust their politi- cians and assume, often quite incorrectly, that they are corrupt. The nasty smell of this crisis, following on the bank robberies, can only strengthen that assumption.

Nor has last week's interminable debate in the Dail done either our Parliament, our Government or our Prime Minister any good at all. The exchange of abuse between a senior army intelligence officer and the ex-Minister of Defence, Mr Gibbons, now moved to Agriculture, has only convinced us that one of them must be lying; and the dismissal of Charles Haughey has left Mr Lynch with a considerably less secure gov- ernment, even though it may have increased the Taoiseach's own personal power within it. In these circumstances it would seem probably that in the event of further crisis some more authoritarian form of govern- ment will have to be imposed, in the style of Mr de Valera's wartime one. But few people believe that Mr Lynch has the strength, and none that he has the authority, of our eighty- seven year old President. There is only one man who appears to have at least the strength, and that is Charles Haughey. It is rumoured in Dublin that that is the real reason why he was fired.

But the situation is still too fluid for con- fident analysis, let alone prognosis. So only guesswork remains, based on speculation and a mass of often contradictory stories. Why has President de Valera not given his authoritative backing- to Jack Lynch? He is not too old to open national shrines, though they say he is not in good health. In the past he has said that this compromise about partition was a direct denial of his whole political career, of the Irish civil war, and of the creation of Fianna Fail by himself nearly half a century ago. On the other hand, it was he who locked up the IRA in the Curragh camp during the war.

What cards has the Taviseach got left? It is getting to look like stud poker: three on the table—the dismissed ministers, violence in the north and the determination of the Fianna Fail not to split openly—and two in the hand, his own reputation for honesty and, very curiously, one inherited from Lord Randolph Churchill, the Orange card, which here and now means appeasement of the North. This, of course, assumes that the Orange card, when played by Mr Lynch, will be so pale in colour thanks to the liberalism enforced on Stormont by Landon as to be acceptable to a bored, minicar-owning public down here. At the time of writing the evi- dence would seem to be the other way: that the Orange card is getting deeper in hue up there and that Mr Blaney's green card down here is therefore more likely to be the win- ning trump.

As for Mr Lynch's transparent honesty— which in our crude peasant way means that he has not lined his pocket out of politics— whereas his enemies used to say 'he looks honest', they are now saying, after damning all his adversaries whether real ones or of the self-inflicted sort, that he is 'too stupid' to be anything but honest. In a country where ridicule kills more quickly than in most, this would give him a political life of perhaps only a few months. Yet if he goes, what he leaves behind is something pretty close to chaos—or perhaps even army rule.

Neither is desired, except by small minori- ties, so perhaps he can play the middle against both ends. If so, he will be almost the first Irishman since Parnell to have done so, and a great statesman. In Ireland, per- haps even more than in the other historic nations of Europe, personality can over- shadow policy very quickly. We believe that we all think about politics a lot: we talk a great deal more about them than we think : and we act quickly, sometimes too quickly, or not at all. It is anybody's guess and Lad- broke's or Kilmartin's odds would be even less illuminating on Lynch than on Wilson at this moment.