The fundamental thing here is not the rehashing of the rights and wrongs of past history, atrocities and wrongdoings, regardless of which side perpetrated them on the other. All that will do is further embitter an already bitter dispute and prolong the agonies for all who want to live peacefully.

The point is simply that a man was murdered and because the murderers concerned belonged to one of the paramilitary groups, their organisation has sought to protect them. If McCartney was a "hood" so what? I don't care, he was still murdered. If a criminal murders another criminal are we saying that's ok and that any further action on the murderer should be "vigilante style" (actually scrub that, there will be some on here that probably appeals to...)

When the pressure of public opinion. direct public action and the media attention was causing problems, possibly even with or perhaps because of the Meath bye-election looming, they then offered to "deal with the matter" internally and, stupidly, decided to publicise their offer. And these guys are paramilitary masterminds?

I salute the family for refusing to go along with this and I don't agree with Laura's slightly cynical comments about legal advice. I'm sure that the family could have agreed to the IRA offer and then feigned ignorance publicly once the men had been "dealt with"...

To me, as a Glaswegian with a brother and uncle living in Belfast (on either side of the "divide), there is no way forward until the people in NI accept the rule of law and not the rule of thugs, regardless of whether they are Loyalist or Republican thugs.

By all means argue about what those laws should be and how fair to either side they are; but until both sides put away their guns and bombs, no real progress can be made. The law is unfair but is less unfair than it used to be (eg police reforms), so work on that and build a momentum for change to a fairer legal system; dwelling on history helps no-one except the recruiters for either side.

So the loyalists want an Ulster with no Catholics and the Republicans want a United Ireland (presumably Protestant-free), neither side will get their way and compromises will have to made.

If it can happen in South Africa given the repressions and murders that were "legally" (if you count the Apartheid laws as legal) taking place there then it can happen in NI too. Perhaps we need a "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" for NI?

Call me naive, call me idealistic, call me ignorant, but I've seen the corrosiveness of NI politics and bigotry in Glasgow, and while that's a fraction of what happens in NI, no-one who wants to live peacefully should have to live with such crap.

So the IRA "kept society peaceful"? Didn't the Krays do the same? Maybe they should have been thanked instead of jailed eh?
Get real guys... thugs are thugs, regardless of their "cause" and deserve all the invective and disgust we can muster.

Andymac