Tue Mar 15/05
The devil must not take the women

I speak today as I spoke on Friday — as an outsider — so maybe I just don't, you know, get it, but what in the name of St Patrick and the Virgin freaking Mary is the Sinn Fein doing? First we had Gerry Adams admitting that he knows who was in the pub where Robert McCartney was beaten to death, or at least that he's sure enough to know who to suspend from the party. (This strikes me as (a) a bloody stupid thing to admit, and (b) reason enough to haul Adams' sorry arse into an interrogation room.) Now we have Martin McGuinness saying things that could only be interpreted by reasonable people as threats:

The McCartneys need to be very careful. To step over that line, which is a very important line, into the world of party-political politics can do a huge disservice to their campaign. In fact, it can dismay and disillusion an awful lot of people, tens of thousands of people who support them in their just demands.

Of course, now that people are interpreting what he said as a threat, McGuinness doesn't know what the hell they're talking about: "No, not at all," he told the BBC. "It is important for the success of the McCartney campaign that they don't stray into the field of party politics."

Ahem. The head of the political party in question knows who was involved. You, Mr McGuinness, know who was involved. We have confirmation today that no fewer than three Sinn Fein politicians were on the premises at the time of Mr McCartney's murder, yet they miraculously saw naught but the frothy bottoms of their pint glasses. In short, the McCartneys haven't stepped over the line into party politics as much as Sinn Fein, through its obfuscation and thinly veiled threats, has stepped over the line out of party politics and back into the world of the terrorist organization that it so desperately wants the world to believe it has pretty much nothing to do with.

Doubtless I was very, very naïve, but until this past week I though of Sinn Fein as fundamentally respectable — associated with the IRA, yes, but separate from it and committed ultimately to its dissolution. It matters not that my little delusion has been shattered, obviously, but if the McCartney sisters manage to bring these goons down a few pegs among their core constituency, that may end up being the best St Patrick's Day ever. I only hope they don't let their obvious sympathies for the Republican cause override their common sense.