From Slugger O’Toole, the excellent Irish blog about Northern Ireland politics.
Weighing the pen and the sword
Jude Collins and Ed Moloney have ended up in a bit of a public barney about an almost blog style debunking of Anthony McIntyre’s LA Times Op Ed piece on how he believes the IRA is morphing into a criminal gang.
McIntyre, a former IRA member, spent 18 years in prison and resigned from the IRA after release. His Op-Ed was a hardcore attack on the IRA for selling out, losing track of their goals, and becoming criminals in the process. Not surprisingly, he’s been attacked (and defended) in turn. Jude Collins says his attacks are baseless, Moloney says McIntyre may have been marked for death by the IRA because of them.
It’s difficult for outsiders to read and properly understand these articles because the politics, players, and history are complex and go back for decades. Still, doing so helps one understand the pressure cooker that is Northern Ireland politics. Things are still very much in flux., destination unknown.