Despite the suggestion that the IRA will have to disband to bring all parties back into government, the precidents are not encouraging. Brian Feeney in the Irish News, delves back into history:
“The IRA did not disband after the Civil War. It divided. The winners continued as the Free State army: most of the losers eventually joined Fianna Fail after 1926. In fact, many Fianna Fail cumainn in the early years of the partys existence were one and the same as the local IRA unit they had been before 1926. But a rump of the IRA steadfastly refused to have anything to do with Fianna Fail and remained sporadically active, their former comrades by then in the Dail turning an indulgent blind eye until the murderous events of 1935-36 forced a crackdown.”
The Sinn Fein leadership will have their work cut out to get a deal that can be accepted simultaneously by IRA volunteers and the wider Unionist community. At the moment it appears to be saying no.
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