Like everyone who loves Ireland, its culture and its people, I applaud any step, however small, taken by political and/or paramilitary groups down the road to peace. This gesture by the IRA is one such step and they are to be congratulated for it, despite it having taken so long.

But I can't agree with GUEST who seems (to my dull brain at any rate) to see the presence of the army in Ulster as the cause of the troubles rather than a tool in achieving peace. There's not enough time here to dissect Irish history back to the Boyne, and I appreciate there's a lot of muddy water flowed under the bridge since then, but please correct me if my memory's failing me when I ask "wasn't the army put there thirty or more years ago as a result of the violence and unrest which had already flared up between the unionist and nationalist communities?"

I'm old enough to remember it (and a lot of stuff even further back than that unfortunately!), and I'm sure they were put in as peacekeepers. If they were removed today, would it instantly mean that little girls who pray in Latin would be able to walk to school without being abused and threatened by a horde of adults who don't? I reckon not, and I also reckon those little girls were bloody grateful that a group of foreign young men and women, who probably have little interest in Irish affairs but are there because they've been ordered to be, were around to protect them.

It'll be a grand day when the military is no longer needed anywhere, not just in Ireland, but anyone who thinks that the warring factions would simply kiss and make up if the army were removed is living in cloud cuckoo land.

duplicate message deleted by JoeClone