Well Ireland, I AM sorry to hear about your loss, of course that makes the issue personal for you.

But I'll try and deal with some of the points you made. Firstly, I don't know if the comment was aimed at me, but I was certainly not suggesting that loyalists hanging onto their weapons was beneficial to anyone, rather the opposite.

(2) Yes, there was some talk of withholding funding from loyalist groups that had broken their own proclaimed ceasefire by engaging in murder and racketeering etc., But they still have their arms and the story is hardly covered by the media - quite unlike the situation that obtained up to the PIRA decommissioning.

(3) Stats - The PIRA killed mainly catholics? Maybe. The UVF and UDA certainly did, as the vast majority of their victims were killed for sectarian reasons - i.e simply because they were catholic. By contrast 132 or so of republican victims (i.e killed by one of the various republican paramilitaries) were killed because they were protestant alone. These figures have been carefully researched (not by me) and published for anyone who wants to check them. The book is called "An Index of Deaths in the Northern Ireland Conflict 1969 - 1993" Obviously it doesn't include the last few killed after that date, but otherwise it's pretty comprehensive. It includes religion, political affiliation (if any / if known), date and place and manner of death, group responsible etc., for each victim.

Added to that, I hope you also accept your statement that the vast majority of the IRA's victims were Catholic will knock on the head frequent loyalist claims that the IRA were sectarian. It's an odd form of sectarianism to 'kill your own'

(4) Lumping loyalist murders in with security forces is not that far-fetched. The security forces were well-known for being sectarian up to recent times, and the issue of collusion is no longer a theory. Obviously not all killings by security forces can be described as loyalist murders - for example the fatal ambush by SAS of PIRA at Loughgall - but there are many other cases where the issue is far less clear.

(5) "There is no dirtier trick than...." Woah! Don't get me started here!!! There are lots of dirty tricks, for example killing people with thousands of razor cuts (The loyalist Shankill Butchers), slaughtering innocent people enjoying a drink in a bar (The Droppin' Well Pub bomb - planted by loyalists), incinerating scores of innocent shoppers (Dublin and Monaghan) etc., etc., Neither side are saints here.

But for me the worst dirty trick was all the propaganda, the distortion of the truth - from both sides, but the British side had far greater resources and power - that kept people at each other's throats the last 30 years. The British Tabloid papers with their total disregard for objectivity and hate-stoking rhetoric, MPs that did not care or want to resolve what was happening. Some of the papers and politicians south of the border were not much better either.

(6) By the way, in case you are getting me wrong here, I'm not trying to say that violence is the way forward or that I would like to see more of it. I originally just wanted to comment on the idea - not mine, but introduced by someone else - that loyalists were being 'restrained' and 'showing maturity' (I'm not quoting, I'm paraphrasing) by not using their guns - guns which in my opinion they shouldn't have if they are as committed to peace and democracy as is being claimed here. As has been pointed out the vast majority of republicans have given up their guns and shown their commitment to the political / democratic route, unlike most of their loyalist counterparts. Loyalists like to make out their violence is only ever a 'response' to republican violence. But the IRA was practically moribund when the Malvern street murders happened in 1966 or the Shankill Butchers were at work in their early days. Neither were the civil rights protestors asking for independence at the start - just to be treated as equal citizens of the northern statelet, for which crime they were met with loyalist baseball bats, bricks as well as police batons.

But just to reiterate - I'm not condoning the dissident republicans either.

(7) Earlier Irish history... don't get me started!