The bit that some mudcatters will find hard to believe is not that the IRA made such a brainless offer, but that the McCartney family rejected it. Just have a look at the lust for vengeance that bismirches some of the capital-punishment threads. Yet there were the McCartneys, offered vengeance on a plate, and they passed up the chance.

I am utterly flabbergasted at the stance of the McCartneys, and even more so that they got away with it. I'm tempted to assume they must themselves have been well respected in PIRA circles, if not directly involved, even to have contemplated such a stance, but I ,ust say I have not a shred of evidence for that.

For PIRA, a pub brawl has turned into an unmitigated disaster, and a major watershed. That in turn could be a setback for the inch-by-inch progress towards reconciliation, if the fine balance between the two "sides" now tilts unhealthily in favour of the unionists.

One thing is certain. With or without decommissioning, any threat of a return to the armed struggle is gone for good. In the 1960s, northern catholics were enduring scandalous abuse as unionists exploited an inbuilt majority, and their outrageous gerrymandering of electoral boundaries. There was blatant discrimination through all aspects of the economy - most keenly felt in the grotesquely manipulated distribution of public-sector housing. Yet even in those appalling circumstances it took several years - and further provocations - to get an armed struggle under way.

People who would once have sheltered a fugitive IRA volunteer, or let him in at the front door and helped him to disappear through a labyrinth of "entries" at the rear, would now be more likely to put in a discreet call to the confidential police line. Two main reasons: first "police" no longer means "RUC", and second, a greater proportion of people now own their own houses, and they have seen property values rise as part of the peace dividend. They want stability.

Without tacit support in their heartland areas - and they never had a stronger heartland than the republican enclave of Short Strand where the McCartneys live - the Provos could not sustain an organised campaign.

There is now a serious risk that PIRA will splinter and fragment further - exceptional leadership may prevent it - and no doubt a number of mavericks will have their day. But the armed struggle is history.