3rd August 1998

IRA rebels form bombers' alliance

"LET the fight go on," reads graffito by the republican Falls Road in Belfast. For those who believed that the Stormont agreement was the writing on the wall for terrorism, the message is becoming clear that former IRA members are still active.

Saturday's 500lb bomb which destroyed much of the centre of Banbridge, Co Down, was the fourth major explosion by republican dissidents since February.

There have also been five mortar attacks on Royal Ulster Constabulary stations and Army watchtowers. Incendiary bombs have destroyed Protestant-owned stores in Portadown and in Belfast, the first commercial bombings in Ulster for several years.

Police in the Irish Republic have foiled nine bomb attacks since the autumn. A joint operation with the Metropolitan Police this month foiled a plan to plant incendiary bombs in central London. Senior RUC officers fear fatalities are only a matter of time. In Banbridge, the police had 20 minutes to clear hundreds of people from a shopping street. Some 33 were injured and two are in hospital.

Last week's mortar attack in Newry was claimed by a group that is calling itself Oglaigh na hEireann, Irish for IRA.

Security officials believe it is this organisation, a loose coalition of hardline terrorists from the IRA, INLA and Continuity IRA, which has also used the name Real IRA, which is behind the wave of terrorism.

The origins of the new group lie in the resignations from the Provisional IRA of the "quartermaster general" and his wife in October last year in protest at the ceasefire. The man, who lives in Co Louth, had to relinquish control of the IRA's weapons and explosives bunkers.

A few other IRA members, mainly from the North Louth and South Armagh areas, followed him into what Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein president, hoped would be oblivion. Instead, they formed a new IRA to eschew the constitutionalism which they believed Mr Adams was embracing. In the intervening nine months, there has been a steady trickle of Provisionals to the dissident splinter groups.

They include the former head of the IRA's " England department", who planned the Brighton bombing, and two leading bomb-makers, who are both based in Dublin.

Last month, a meeting was held in Dundalk, Co Louth, to cement links between the dissident INLA and the CIRA. The INLA is a pseudo-Marxist group, previously under the control of the Provisionals, which has emerged from bloody internal feuding to re-establish itself in urban areas such as west Belfast.

CIRA, the military wing of Republican Sinn Fein, which split from Mr Adams's Provisional Sinn Fein in 1986, is a small group of mainly middle-aged former IRA men based in Co Fermanagh and the Irish Republic.

Estimates by security sources of the number of dissident terrorists vary from a few dozen to nearly 100. Opinion is also divided on the question of whether there is significant Provisional IRA involvement in the attacks.

"The situation is extremely fluid," said a senior anti-terrorist officer. "It is very difficult to tell who is a member of what at the moment and that is making our task of preventing attacks even more difficult than in the past.

"We are seeing the dissidents mounting sophisticated attacks using very up-to-date technology. They have enough kit and technical expertise to carry out a concerted terrorist campaign. All they are lacking is the younger operators.

"The consensus on PIRA involvement is that individual members at the lower levels are lending a helping hand but that this is not being sanctioned by the leadership of the mainstream republican movement."

Successes in apprehending dissident bombers south of the border has led to speculation that Provisional IRA members have been passing information to the Irish police about the activities of their former colleagues.

Yet intense hatred within republicanism of "informers" stretches backs generations and it seems highly unlikely that even the most ardent advocates within Sinn Fein of the benefits of the political path would contemplate such a step.

There is little doubt, however, that there is considerable concern among the Provisionals that dissident terrorist activity could jeopardise the gains they have secured by participating in the Stormont talks.

Before the Good Friday agreement was signed, leading RUC officers believed that the presence of the dissidents strengthened the hand of Sinn Fein in negotiations. Since Easter, Sinn Fein leaders have judged that it is in their short-term interest to help to maintain a degree of stability in Northern Ireland.

Their former comrades appear certain to make a concerted attempt to bring down the new Ulster assembly. The coming months are likely to test severely the resolve of the security forces and Northern Ireland's politicians to resist them.

6 July 1998

Orangemen dig in for long campaign

DRUMCREE MARCH: None of the three groups in the stand-off is contemplating surrender - and the Province could be paralysed

THE stand-off at Drumcree pits three separate groups against each other, the Orangemen, officers of the Royal Ulster Constabulary and British soldiers, and nationalist residents of the Garvaghy Road.

"Our strategy committee has drawn up plans for every contingency," said one senior Orangeman.

"Things are very fluid at the moment and we're waiting for the Army to show its hand.

"But you can be sure that we will be stretching the security forces and this thing will spread from Portadown."

Illegal marches across the whole of Northern Ireland were being planned and there were calls for thousands of Orangemen to descend on Drumcree - the name of which comes from the old Irish for "the ridge of the branchy tree".

Loyalist paramilitaries were also present in Portadown and the fear last night was that they would use violence to try to overturn the decision of the Parades Commission.

"We cannot be responsible for other elements within loyalism but no one will be standing idly by," said the Orangeman.

Precisely how many people the Orange Order will be able to call on is impossible to calculate. But the events which surrounded the 1996 stand-off showed that it has the potential to paralyse the province.The security forces have been equally secretive about their plans.

But Ronnie Flanagan, the Royal Ulster Constabulary Chief Constable, and Lt Gen Sir Rupert Smith, General Officer Commanding Northern Ireland, have committed themselves to preventing the Orangemen marching and vowed to prevent a repetition of 1996.

It has been agreed that the Army would take the lead in order to prevent RUC officers from being identified at roadblocks or from coming under pressure to assist the loyalist cause.

Leading an overwhelmingly Protestant RUC containing a large number of Orangemen, Mr Flanagan is intensely aware of the dangers that come with divided loyalties.

A three-mile air exclusion zone was declared around Drumcree because of the large number of military helicopters and spotter planes in the area.

Surveillance cameras were placed on masts overlooking the church with pictures being relayed to a command centre on a hill overlooking the area.

Small, mobile Army and RUC units will remain on stand-by to be called to the scene of disturbances or illegal roadblocks.

Their function is to deal with a situation as quickly as possible and with the minimum of manpower.

While the Orange Order knows that its credibility as a force in Northern Ireland politics is dependent on its ability to "win" over Drumcree, Mr Flanagan knows that the future of the RUC is also at stake.

Many senior Unionists believe Mr Flanagan's determination to uphold the Parades Commission's decision derives in part from a desire for his force to be seen to be impartial in the eyes of the Patten Commission on policing in Ulster.

The image of the RUC was badly damaged last year when nationalist protesters were beaten off the Garvaghy Road.

If it capitulated in the face of actual or threatened loyalist violence this year then nationalist demands for disbandment or root-and-branch reform of the force would be given a major boost.

As the sight of groups of Roman Catholic children chatting happily to soldiers testified yesterday, a de facto alliance between nationalists and the security forces had developed.

For the time being, the former would remain in the background while the latter confronted loyalists.

For republicans such as Breandan MacCionnaith, leader of the Garvaghy Road Residents' Coalition, it was close to being the ideal situation.

A former IRA member, he was convicted for his part in the 1981 bombing of the Royal British Legion hall in Portadown, which was built in memory of, amongst others, those who had died at the Somme.

"The Orangemen are as sick as dogs that their own government has turned on them," said one nationalist resident.

"But if it takes the British Army to show Unionists that nationalists have rights too then we'll just stand by and watch."

Across Northern Ireland, however, republican paramilitaries remained on stand-by in case the situation changed.

Security sources said there was also a danger that elements opposed to the IRA ceasefire might carry out an attack further to destabilise the situation.

As the evening shadows grew longer and the Orangemen dug in for their first night under the stars, each element in the three-sided conflict appeared to be preparing for a long campaign.

2 July 1998

Old hatreds live on at Stormont

THE ONLY flags in the assembly chamber were the Union Jack hearts floating in a sea of red, white and blue on Ian Paisley's tie. Sitting just a few yards away was Gerry Adams, wearing a green ribbon in his lapel and speaking Irish as hard-line Unionists heckled and scoffed. Mr Paisley did not look pleased.

If some were pinching themselves in case the scene before them was just a dream, others seemed determined to remind their lifelong foes that they were together in the same arena for the first time, the old enmities showed no sign of going away.

In the public gallery, Royal Ulster Constabulary bodyguards stood nervously by the doors rubbing shoulders with Terence "Cleeky" Clarke, a former IRA prisoner and now Mr Adams's bodyguard, and a gaggle of senior republicans who were settling down to watch the performance.

Mr Adams was at his most unctuous. He was the first Sinn Fein president to sit in a partitionist body in Northern Ireland but he was well aware that it was Unionists who were the most uncomfortable.

"It is only by meeting like this that we can stop thinking about ourselves and our own political niches and start thinking about our children and our future," he intoned. "I am very pleased to be here and to see so many other people present here with us."

The Ulster Unionists sitting opposite shifted uncomfortably in their seats as he welcomed the nomination of David Trimble for First Minister. Sinn Fein would abstain because "we may not be doing any favours by voting for him", he added, but the damage had been done.

Mr Paisley lifted his bulk from his seat. "Mr Adams tells us to think of people, well I'm thinking today of people, of those that were murdered by his cohorts, the families that were torn apart, the people who were smashed and turned into vegetables by IRA violence," he thundered.

Tactics had clearly been agreed beforehand and if Mr Paisley was the bludgeon, then Robert McCartney QC was the rapier. "Sinn Fein/IRA", he said, intended to move forward "on the twin track of the democratic process while retaining their military capability". How, he asked, could Mr Trimble sit down with them if this strategy continued?

Turning to Mr Trimble's members sitting behind him, Mr McCartney appealed to them to prevent their leader becoming First Minister. Much fire was turned on Sinn Fein but Mr Trimble was the real target.

Mr Adams objected to the term "Sinn Fein/IRA". In the interests of "good manners", he said, parties should be referred to by their correct name.

Speaker after speaker from the anti-agreement Unionist camp rose to vent their spleen. Sinn Fein's contribution to democracy "can be seen on the tombstones around this province", said Peter Robinson, the DUP deputy leader.

Mr McCartney's right-hand man Cedric Wilson said it was only with "great difficulty" that he could sit down with the apologists of terror. All Unionists should "recoil with moral contempt" at the idea of sharing a cabinet table with them.

Perhaps noting Mr Adams's objections to Mr McCartney's phraseology, Sammy Wilson, of the DUP, referred instead to "IRA/Sinn Fein" and poured scorn on Mr Trimble's promises not to treat with terrorists.

"Had he been Pinnochio," he said staring at the UUP leader as he studied his assembly rule book 10 yards away, "he could have poked me with his nose from where he's sitting."

That raised the biggest laugh so far but Martin McGuinness - not famed for his sense of humour - topped it. It was good to meet Mr Wilson, he taunted. "And it's really great to see him today with his clothes on." Mr Wilson, whose political career is only just recovering two years after an Ulster tabloid featured him gambolling in the nude with his girlfriend, was not laughing.

Jabbing his finger at Mr Paisley and Mr McCartney, Mr McGuinness told them that they would be forced to accept change. "You came trundling into this room because you're afraid you're going to be left behind."

There was no requirement for the decommissioning of arms, he continued, and nothing would stop Sinn Fein taking its seats in government. "This is only the start." Mr McCartney, he added, was attempting to intimidate Mr Trimble's people and trying to force them back into the dark ages. "Intimidate?" laughed Mr McCartney. "Don't you talk about intimidating."

As Mr McGuinness continued to lecture Unionists about democracy, the invective came thick and strong. "Get rid of your balaclava," shouted one of Mr Paisley's men. "Semtex and Armalite," called another.

But Mr Paisley had already lost his vote. The word had been passed around that Mr Trimble was safe, that his "dissidents" and alleged waverers had decided to keep their powder dry for another day.

Seamus Mallon, the SDLP Second Minister, and Mr Trimble spoke of new beginnings and of working together for the good of all the people of Northern Ireland before shaking hands and taking their oaths of office.

Mr Paisley could only rail impotently at the latest act of treachery by his brother Unionists. "Everybody will be glad to know," he roared, "the Prime Minister will be here tomorrow and he'll be giving out OBEs galore."

3rd July 1998
A tiring week of talk and tension

IT WAS Ulster's version of Groundhog Day or, as the legendary American Yogi Berra put it, deja vu all over again. "No guns, no government," said the Ulster Unionists each morning. "No government, no guns," retorted Sinn Fein.

As negotiations that had seemed dead in the water the previous night dragged into Friday afternoon, the beginning of the week seemed like another age. "I can't even remember what happened this morning," said one delegate. "And don't even ask me about tomorrow."

Monday

Although the arms decommissioning issue was to dominate the week, it was that other D word - Drumcree - that occupied Tony Blair for most of the day.

With his chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, directing the "proximity talks" in Stormont House, the Prime Minister listened to the concerns of both Orangemen and nationalist residents from Portadown.

Brendan MacCionnaith, of the Garvaghy Road Residents' Coalition, said he had outlined to Mr Blair "the whole litany of murder, of threats, of intimidation against the community".

Orangemen insisted that all they wanted to do on Sunday was walk home from church. "We're standing up for civil and religious liberties," said one negotiator.

After the talks ended without agreement, the Parades Commission announced that the Orangemen would have to make alternative arrangements for their return from Drumcree church.

Having lost the first battle, Mr Trimble moved on to what looked like becoming his Waterloo. Decommissioning had to be simultaneous with the setting up of an executive, he said.

Mr Adams said that this would be "turning the Good Friday Agreement on its head". One sensed it was going to be a long week.

Tuesday

Mr Blair kicked off by reminding the politicians that Northern Ireland was facing its "moment of truth". A deal had to be reached for the sake of Ulster's children.

Unionists were now turning on each other. Graham Gudgin, a key Trimble adviser, carelessly left a party "position paper" lying around. Within minutes, Cedric Wilson, of the hardline Northern Ireland Unionist Party, was gleefully distributing it to the press.

After denouncing the UUP's planned sell-out, Mr Wilson castigated Mr Blair for holding a media call with a number of children carrying placards urging "Compromise for peace".

Publication of Gen John de Chastelain's report on arms decommissioning was postponed amid rumours that he had been "nobbled" by Mr Blair and Bertie Ahern because his verdict on the IRA's intentions had not been positive enough.

John Taylor, UUP deputy leader and the man who said last year he wouldn't touch the draft Good Friday Agreement "with a 40ft pole" 48 hours before signing it, put the chance of talks success at two per cent.

Wednesday

The day of Mr Blair's "absolute" deadline of midnight. Mo Mowlam was despatched to London for Prime Minister's Question Time. As the day dragged on and it became clear the deadline would be missed, Jeffrey Donaldson, the Unionist hardliner, looked like the cat who got the cream.

Unionists from anti-agreement parties who had boycotted last year's talks were conspicuous by their presence this time. "My job's to rugby tackle Mr Trimble if he walks down the corridor to sign anything," said one.

Politicians from the smaller parties were reduced to wandering around the media marquee in the hope of finding out what was going on. David Ford, of the Alliance party, said: "I was cautiously optimistic but now I'm guardedly pessimistic in a non-committal way."

By late afternoon, Mr Taylor, who had put chances of a deal at four per cent as he arrived in the morning, revised his assessment to "about minus three".

Inside the UUP talks room, the phone was ringing constantly as backwoodsmen urged the delegates not to "betray Ulster".

It seemed that Union First, the anti-agreement ginger group, had "inadvertently" been giving out the number. Jim Wilson, UUP chief whip, unplugged the phone.

Thursday

In the early hours, a senior British official emerged to brief selected journalists that a major shift in republican thinking had taken place and that IRA decommissioning was now on offer.

"An historic deal is within our grasp," he said, adding that there was "some disbelief" that Unionists were preparing to throw it away.

President Clinton became involved, making calls to ask Mr Trimble and Mr Adams to take risks for peace. The de Chastelain report was again delayed and Mr Adams and Martin McGuinness put their offer to the UUP. It was rejected.

At 2am, a tired and exasperated Mr Blair and Mr Ahern implored Mr Trimble to cut a deal and save the Good Friday Agreement. The only deal on offer was an executive being formed immediately with IRA decommissioning happening some way down the line.

Mr Trimble said that only an IRA statement that an arms handover would happen could be sufficient. And even then the handover must take place at the same time as power was devolved from Westminster.

After 75 meetings involving Mr Blair over 50 hours, the word came from the UUP that a collapse was on the cards. "We're pulling out," said one delegate at 3am. "No one in here is in any fit state to make the sort of decisions we're being asked to consider."

At 3.40am, the talks adjourned. Mr Clinton asked Mr Trimble not to walk away from Ireland's best chance for peace this century. Mr Taylor put the chances of success at 10 per cent.

"We have seen nothing in writing," he said. "All Sinn Fein are saying is: `We want into the cabinet, the executive immediately, we would love to see decommissioning but we can't decommission because we have nothing to do with the IRA.' "

At midday, the two prime ministers arrive at Castle Buildings once again. "I believe that what we have witnessed in the past few days are historic, seismic shifts in the political landscape of Northern Ireland," said Mr Blair in a clear reference to Sinn Fein's proposal.

"The entire civilised world will not understand if we cannot put this together and make it work - and rightly."

Mr Adams arrived at Stormont looking dishevelled. Unionists had the choice between "jumping together into the future or lurching backwards into the past", he said. "Our commitment is to move forward. We think it can be done."

An Irish government source said: "We feel we've delivered Sinn Fein. The problem is the Unionists."

The talks began to run into the sand with Sinn Fein saying Unionists were never serious about doing a deal. One UUP delegate said: "There is no way I can go back to the country and sell it. If they wind up the assembly then so be it."

At 11pm it appeared that Mr Blair had admitted defeat when his press secretary Alastair Campbell said talks would soon end. "But a deal's still possible." Few believed a man who had apparently cried wolf so often before.

Friday

Shortly after midnight, Mr Adams and his Sinn Fein colleagues emerged to declare they would be making public their offer to Unionists. Although it appeared to mark a shift in the republican position, decommissioning was far from guaranteed.

The day dawned with the expectation that the political process would be "parked" over the summer in the hope that talks could restart in September. But nationalists and republicans were furious that Mr Trimble had not been pushed harder.

Just before lunch, Gen de Chastelain's report finally arrived. Unionists said it held little for them, but the two governments insisted it showed that IRA decommissioning could and would happen - if Mr Trimble did the deal.

The governments' announcement was delayed and delayed as negotiations resumed and pressure on the Unionists was stepped up. In time for the 1pm news, Mr Campbell briefed the press that a deal was all but done.

For most of the afternoon, there was a news blackout with Unionists holed up inside the building. An Anglo-Irish synthesis paper was drawn up and presented to the parties.

Channel 4 News led with the statement that the republican movement had accepted total disarmament of the IRA and said Mr Blair was on the point of announcing the end of 500 years of violent history in Ireland.

Some time earlier, one UUP delegate had said: "It's just the same as last year and we all knew it would come to this. Will we do the deal? I just don't know. But I defy anyone to come up with a happy ending to this one."

19 August 1998

A family man yields to his double pain
By Toby Harnden in Aughadarra, Co Tyrone

AFTER the silence came the tears. Michael Monaghan's numb grief gave way yesterday to the full realisation of what the Omagh bombers had done to his family.

Shouldering the coffin of his wife, Avril, he stared ahead at the tiny white casket of his 18-month-old daughter, Maura, and wept as if the pain would never stop.

Beside him were his surviving daughters, Aiobheann, five, Eilisha, six, wearing matching blue dresses, and four-year-old son, Patrick. Perhaps it was a blessing that they seemed too young, too innocent, to understand what had happened.

Mrs Monaghan, 30, was seven months pregnant with twin girls when she was killed in the blast. Her mother, Mary Grimes, who had been celebrating her 65th birthday, died beside her when the 500lb device was detonated. Three generations of a family blown away in a split-second.

The people of Aughadarra, 15 miles from Omagh and just two from the border, and the surrounding townlands in the Clogher Valley mourned them all yesterday. Bonded together by tragedy, they buried their dead with a dignity that was humbling.

Washing still hung on the line outside the bungalow where Mrs Monaghan had lived. Unmade bunk beds could be seen through the window. As the cortege made its way down the lane, cattle chewed the grass, their ears flicking away flies.

Hundreds filed silently into St Macartan's Roman Catholic chapel, many of them Protestants from Beragh, 10 miles away, where Mrs Monaghan's father, Mick, had lived with her mother.

On Saturday, Mr Grimes had bought his wife a bunch of birthday flowers. They were lying on their farmhouse table when she was killed.

As a gesture to those of another faith, Fr Lawrence Dawson, the St Macartan's parish priest, had arranged for an Irish tricolour to be removed from a nearby telegraph pole. Among the mourners was Gerry McHugh, a local Sinn Fein assemblyman. But this was a day when politics were set aside.

A statement from the Monaghan and Grimes families thanked "the Army and especially the RUC" for the caring manner in which they had dealt with the bereaved. There was also a message for Sharon Robinson, the shop assistant in Kells's outfitters who had chatted with Mrs Monaghan and her mother moments before they died.

By all accounts, the women were as close as mother and daughter could be. Mrs Grimes, a mother of 11 and a dairy farmer's wife, seemed ageless and invincible. In addition to helping to create so many new lives, she had lived her own to the full.

Mrs Monaghan had attended Mass in the chapel on the morning of the bomb to celebrate the Feast of the Assumption.

Friends spoke of the strong faith of both the Monaghan and the Grimes families which would hold them together in the months and years ahead.

The chapel was named after St Macartan, one of the earliest Irish saints. Made Bishop of Clogher by St Patrick, he died in 504 and was renowned as a miracle worker.

It was not the first time the parish had been confronted with evil. In 1979, Michael Cassidy, a local Roman Catholic who worked as a prison officer in Belfast, was shot dead by the IRA as he emerged from the chapel after his sister's wedding. He was holding the hand of his three-year-old daughter, Rosalynn, as the terrorists opened fire.

Among the mourners yesterday was Tommy McFarland, a Presbyterian who lived a field away from Mrs Grimes. His daughter, Colleen McMurray, 34, an RUC officer, was killed in an IRA mortar attack in Newry six years ago.

During the service, the Most Rev Joseph Duffy, who now holds St Macartan's post as the local bishop, told the people of Aughadarra and the rest of Northern Ireland: "We must all of us again honestly face the perverse insanity and deep-seated and deep-rooted nature of the evil that has caused all this suffering and pain."

Fr James Grimes spoke of the niece who "often went slapping about in her bare feet, looking after the children, cooking and making tea and consoling and comforting like any other person, living the life that God gave her for others".

The priest said that Mrs Monaghan had always been "giving all the time and never asking". Patrick McKenna, a cousin, struggled to utter the words of the a reading from the Book of Hebrews: "The virtuous woman, though she dies before her time will find rest. Length of days is not what marks age. . . understanding, this is a woman's grey hairs, untarnished life, this is old age."

Mr Monaghan, 32, a joiner, emerged from the church with tears streaming down his face. He carried his son on his shoulder, Patrick's eyes wide as he surveyed the crowd outside. Beside them, a mourner heard Aiobheann explain to her sister: "Mummy's in heaven with Maura."

A good life, one of Mrs Monaghan's grandmothers had told Fr Grimes, could never really be destroyed by evil.

A wreath in the shape of a teddy bear lay beside the double grave as the two coffins were lowered into the earth. Pictures of Mrs Monaghan and Maura, both smiling and full of life, had been placed on the altar.

"Avril was really a mother of six, you know," said Mary McKenna, 78, a distant relative who lives next to the church.

"There were four people buried here today although they will never really be laid to rest until the culprits are caught. But we are a close people and everyone is a good neighbour here. Above all Michael has God and family to help him through. And both are forces more powerful than any bomb."

Mary McAleese, the Irish President, will attend the funeral of bomb victims at Cockhill, Buncrana, Co Donegal, today, in addition to services in Omagh and Dublin at the weekend.

1 July 1998

Children thrust into spotlight at Ulster talks

So little progress was being made at Stormont that the typists were watching the tennis on TV, reports Toby Harnden

THE political temperature rose steadily at Stormont yesterday with Unionists and Sinn Fein trading insults over the vexed issue of decommissioning.

But perhaps the most startling claim of the day came when Cedric Wilson, Ulster's serial protester, accused the Prime Minister of abusing children.

At the beginning of Tuesday's Northern Ireland talks, Tony Blair said the peace process had to work because the children of Ulster deserved a better future.

Almost on cue, a collection of youngsters was ushered towards the entrance to Castle Buildings to deliver a message to Mr Blair which read: "Please make the Peace Process work and lead us out of this nightmare."

Yesterday, another busload of children arrived at Stormont, this time to sing along for peace with Mo Mowlam, the Northern Ireland Secretary, and the local songwriter Tommy Sands. "Don't let us down, We are depending on you," they sang.

When asked whose idea this show had been, a Northern Ireland Office press man baulked at the suggestion of any "choreography" or "sequencing", to use the current political buzzwords, on the part of the Government. "It was their own idea," he insisted. "It is a free country, you know."

But Mr Wilson, leader of the hardline Northern Ireland Unionist Party, was having none of this. "The sight of young children being abused in this fashion is disgraceful," he thundered.

"I have no objection to children taking part in campaigns for brushing one's teeth or against litter but for Tony Blair to allow his officials to use them as a backdrop for their propaganda is totally reprehensible."

Mr Wilson, best known in Ulster as man who would routinely burn Anglo-Irish documents in public and mount one-man pickets of Stormont, added: "There were children carrying placards calling for compromise who weren't even old enough to spell the word."

Inside the talks, Mr Blair appeared to be finding the adults rather less malleable than their juniors. "He's in a pretty sombre mood," reported one talks official. "If I tell you that the typists are sitting around watching the tennis then that tells you something about the progress."

At a similar stage of the proceedings 14 months ago, the typists had been busy with drafts and redrafts of Anglo-Irish position papers and outline deals. The British and Irish governments had worked hard to recreate the atmosphere of last year's Good Friday Agreement.

Castle Buildings, a drab Sixties office block, was again the venue for negotiations, although this year the parties were all allocated different rooms so that, one official suggested, people could understand their opponents' political surroundings.

But for David Trimble's Ulster Unionist Party, the negotiations of Easter week last year held some unpleasant memories. Exhausted and divided among themselves, they were pressurised into accepting a deal that was at best ambiguous on decommissioning.

"We're much better organised for a siege this time," said a fresh-faced James Leslie, UUP assembleyman for North Antrim, who had been given the morning off to relax and sleep in preparation for a long night.

A rota for negotiators and aides to take time off had been agreed in advance to ensure that tiredness would play no role in any final outcome.

Despite the previous night's customary "spin" from the Prime Minister's official spokesman the night before, by late afternoon there appeared to be no sign of any seismic political shifts from either side.

Jeffrey Donaldson, the UUP negotiator, and Sinn Fein's Pat Doherty may have been sitting down at the same table in the press marquee but there was no meeting of minds.

Mr Doherty accused Unionists of bowing to the wishes of their rejectionist wing and described the talks as a battle between the "process of democracy and the forces of mayhem". Sinn Fein, of course, was on the side of democracy.

When asked whether he was confident IRA decommissioning would occur, he said: "We are confident we will continue to use our influence to bring decommissioning about."

Although the British and Irish governments were hinting that Sinn Fein was prepared to accept that the IRA had to decommission by May 2000, no one in the UUP had been given any evidence for that.

General John de Chastelain's long-awaited report on decommissioning had not been tabled by 7pm and there were indications that he was resisting pressure to put a more optimistic gloss on Sinn Fein's attitude towards disarmament.

But Mr Wilson, at least, appeared contented. Having heard his complaints that the Prime Minister would pose with children but not shake hands with the victims of terrorism, Mr Blair had spent 20 minutes with the Families Acting for Innocent Relatives group.

"They had a very constructive meeting," he said. "But I'll be writing to the Northern Ireland Office to demand that children are not used again in such a cynical way."

6 May 1998

THE SLAB MURPHY LIBEL CASE

IRA plotted to blow up Royals on theatre trip, court told

SEAN O'Callaghan, the former IRA commander and Irish police informer, was ordered by his terrorist leaders to bomb 16 English seaside resorts and blow up the Prince and Princess of Wales, a Dublin High Court heard yesterday.

Mr O'Callaghan, who was convicted of two murders, sentenced to 539 years for IRA offences and released from prison in 1996, said he was part of an aborted plan to murder the royal couple at the Dominion Theatre in London in 1983.

He spent four hours giving evidence on the second day of a libel action brought by Thomas "Slab" Murphy, a farmer from Ballybinaby, Co Louth, against The Sunday Times newspaper as a result of a 1985 article headlined, "Portrait of a Check-in Terrorist".

In it a "Slab" Murphy was named as having been appointed as the commander of IRA operations in Northern Ireland. It was also alleged he had sanctioned a planned bombing campaign of English seaside reports in 1985.

Mr Murphy, 48, who was surrounded by his family and supporters in the public gallery, denies any connection with the IRA. His counsel described the article as "outrageous" and penned by "skulking character assassins".

In what has been claimed as being one of the most detailed descriptions of the higher levels of the IRA, Mr O'Callaghan spoke of the "many, many meetings" he had attended over a number of years.

He saw Mr Murphy at three IRA gatherings in the mid-1980s, two of the IRA's General Headquarters or GHQ Staff and one of its Revolutionary Council. Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness and Pat Doherty, all Sinn Fein leaders, had been at one or more of them.

Mr O'Callaghan said he had been to one "impromptu" meeting of the IRA's Army Council held in Sinn Fein's Dublin headquarters after a party national executive meeting in 1985.

"In the room was Gerry Adams, Joe Cahill, Martin McGuinness, Pat Doherty," he said.

"Danny Morrison was also there but he wasn't a member of the Army Council. I had been asked by Pat Doherty in late '84, early '85 to take charge of in investigation into IRA structures in the south of Ireland." Mr Adams, he said, "thanked me for the piece of work I had done".

Mr O'Callaghan described Mr Murphy as a taciturn, "unapproachable" man who derived his undoubted authority from his position as commander of the feared South Armagh Brigade of the IRA.

At GHQ Staff meetings "Murphy gave no specific details of what South Armagh was involved in" but "it [the South Armagh Brigade] was certainly recognised by IRA volunteers and the leadership of the entire republican structure as being the most effective in IRA terms", he said.

"Historically, South Armagh IRA had tended to be rather insular, concentrating on their own area. From early 1984 onwards, it became quite clear they were playing a much more important role in the organisation and higher structures of the IRA."

At one meeting, Mr Murphy asked for high-powered deer rifles to be supplied from the Irish Republic. Dickie O'Neill, a member of the IRA's Southern Command, made the necessary arrangements.

Mr O'Callaghan also recalled a conversation between Mr Doherty and Mr Murphy. Last week, he told the court: "Pat Doherty sort of made an introduction and said, `How are we going to win the war?'

"Tom Murphy said, `Bomb them to the conference table and then booby-trap the table'. Pat Doherty said, `What about the Sinn Fein delegation?' and Tom said `We never tell people where we're putting our booby-traps'."

Under cross-examination by Eamonn Leahy, SC, for Mr Murphy, Mr O'Callaghan conceded that in his affidavit the question "What about the Sinn Fein delegation?" had been posed by him and not Mr Doherty.

There had also been a "genuine error" about the venue of one of the meeting which had not been held in Nenagh, Co Tipperary - as claimed in the affidavit - but in County Mayo.

Mr O'Callaghan admitted that he had claimed at various times to have carried out five murders. In fact, he had murdered two people - Eva Martin, an Ulster Defence Regiment Greenfinch, and Det Insp Peter Flanagan, in 1974.

When he gave himself up for arrest in 1988, he told police he had murdered two American Noraid activists who had been held hostage after the capture of an arms shipment to County Kerry.

This was "a load of rubbish" which he had concocted in case he was badly treated by the authorities. He said this had been a "stupid mistake" but he had thought that by making up a confession he might leave himself the option to claim later that all his confessions had been false.

He also admitted he had repeatedly lied about murdering Sean Corcoran, an IRA member shot dead as an informer in 1985. This had been done, he claimed, to ensure that an investigation into the murder would be carried out by the Irish police.

Mr Leahy put it to Mr O'Callaghan that he was an "accomplished liar" and that telling untruths had become a "way of life". Mr O'Callaghan denied this, saying: "Because of the choice you make, you are put into situations where the act of lying is part of the framework of your life. Without it you would almost certainly be killed."

The case continues

May 1998

`SLAB' MURPHY CASE

An accident of history turned border boy into ruthless commander By Toby Harnden in Dublin

FOR nearly three decades, Thomas "Slab" Murphy was a senior IRA figure known to few outside the security forces.

During the nine days of evidence presented to Dublin's High Court, however, Murphy was revealed as an IRA commander whose dedication to the armed struggle for a united Ireland had made him perhaps the most deadly terrorist in the British Isles.

A bachelor who lived with his mother until her death at the age of 72 six years ago, Murphy is a balding, thick-set man with a flattened nose.

Seldom uttering an unnecessary word, his position in his native South Armagh is effectively that of a medieval baron who exercises absolute control over his fiefdom.

The 100-acre Murphy farm has been used as a base for the smuggling of pigs, grain and diesel oil. The companies have made him a wealthy man and provided the IRA with an increasing source of revenue.

By the time Murphy was born on Aug 26, 1949, his father, Patrick, was already being called by the name "Slab" to distinguish him from other Murphys in the border area of North Louth and South Armagh. When his father died in 1972, local tradition dictated that the three sons would also be known as "Slab".

Although Murphy's mother, Elizabeth was known to hold strong republican views, the family had not been associated with the IRA during the border campaign of 1956 to 1961.

Thomas attended school at Glassdrummond before leaving at 14 to work on the family farm.

It was perhaps an accident of history that provided the foundation of his later power for the border drawn up to divide Ireland in 1920 cut through the Murphy's farmland.

Murphy was already listed by police as an IRA man in 1968 and when the Troubles flared in the area following the introduction of internment without trial in 1971 he was a trusted member of the band of self-styled guerrilla fighters who called themselves the South Armagh Brigade of the Provisional IRA.

The South Armagh unit soon became the most feared in Northern Ireland, its "volunteers" drawn mainly from a small number of closely-knit families and supported by the vast majority of the local population.

Murphy's elder brother, Patrick, was charged in 1972 with possessing bomb detonators and acquitted, before being interned without trial later that year. Frank, the youngest of the three sons, was charged with the attempted murder of a soldier in 1973 but also found not guilty.

In the mid-1970s, Merlyn Rees, then Home Secretary, nicknamed South Armagh "bandit country" after Murphy and his men patrolled in large groups in the hope of encountering British soldiers.

Their success in killing Royal Ulster Constabulary officers and Army personnel led to South Armagh being the first area in Northern Ireland where the SAS was officially used.

The Murphy farm was the epicentre of IRA activity in South Armagh. In 1977, an SAS squad raided it and arrested three employees.

One of them was Gerry McGeough, later arrested in connection with IRA bomb attacks in Germany and convicted in the United States of gun-running for the Provisionals. Brendan Burns, blown up by his own bomb in 1988, worked as a lorry driver. The third, Joseph Brennan, was sentenced in 1994 to 16 years for his part in a mortar attack.

Burns and Brennan were arrested on Aug 27, 1979 following the Warrenpoint massacre in which 18 soldiers died in a double bomb attack.

They were arrested on a motorbike near to Warrenpoint. Both the bike and a trailer on which one of the bombs had been placed were later linked to the Murphy farm.

On the same day, Earl Mountbatten was blown up during a boating holiday off the coast of Sligo .

Murphy had been among the guests at the wedding of Thomas McMahon, who was convicted of the murders of Lord Mountbatten and three others in the vessel. It was believed the attack had been sanctioned by Murphy.

The RUC believed that Murphy was appointed head of the IRA's Northern Command around February 1985. That year, Sir Jack Hermon, the RUC Chief Constable, said that the man behind a bomb that killed four of his officers was a "wealthy pig farmer" living on the border.

Murphy's reputation within the IRA now stretched far beyond South Armagh and he was one of the select group who negotiated arms shipments with the Libyan authorities.

Murphy made brief visits to Greece four times in 1986 and twice in 1987. He also travelled to Yugoslavia in 1989.

His purpose was to meet Nasser Ashur, the Libyan intelligence agent who had been sent to London by Colonel Gaddafi in 1984 to negotiate the end of the Libyan embassy siege.

Murphy and other senior IRA figures such as Gabriel Cleary arranged for a first shipment of 10 tons of arms to arrive at Clogga Strand, on the Wicklow coast.

Three more shipments arrived in Ireland, forming the bulk of an arsenal that has sustained the IRA's terrorist campaign for more than a decade since.

Despite Murphy's notoriety within security circles, he has been arrested no more than a handful of times and has not been questioned since 1989. On that occasion, his farm was raided after the murder of Chief Supt Harry Breen and Supt Bob Buchanan.

The two officers had been returning across the border from a meeting with Irish police to discuss how to combat Murphy's activities.

A member of the IRA's ruling Army Council since the mid-1980s, Murphy was among those who took the decision to end the first ceasefire in February 1996 and was reputed to have been appointed Chief of Staff of the terrorist group in the autumn of that year.

As such, he is one of the seven men whose attitude towards the Stormont agreement will dictate whether the IRA will continue the almost relentless war it has waged against the British state for the past 30 years.

Sitting in court this week, listening intently and betraying not a hint of emotion as the case against him was outlined, it was impossible to spot a clue about what he might have been thinking.

One senior RUC officer said shortly before the verdict: "Slab is probably highly sceptical about whether the political path can ever bring about a united Ireland.

"But he is a shrewd and highly-intelligent man who will be arguing that the IRA must bide its time and wait for the right moment before striking again."

22 April 1998

Stormont deal turns sorrow to anger

IONA Meyer was preparing lunch for her two young children when she heard the ring of the doorbell that every RUC wife dreads.

"When I saw the police uniforms I knew something was wrong," she said. "Then they told me there had been an incident in town and Gary had been involved."

Less than an hour before, Const Gary Meyer had been patrolling a city-centre market in Belfast with his friend, Const Harry Beckett, when two IRA gunmen walked up behind them and shot the two community policemen in the backs of their heads.

"I asked straightaway was Gary dead and they said he wasn't but his colleague was," said Mrs Meyer.

Leaving Carolyn, six, and Stuart, two, in the house with a policewoman, she was driven to the hospital in an armoured car. "The surgeon told me straightaway that if Gary survived he wouldn't be the person who had gone to work that morning because he was brain damaged. I was taken into the room where he was and I talked to him as he died."

Const Meyer was 36. A former member of the Royal Anglian Regiment who had grown up in Chelmsford, Essex, he had joined the RUC and settled in Northern Ireland after first being posted there as a soldier.

"He just loved the RUC and had the highest regard for everthing they did," said Mrs Meyer, who is chairwoman of the RUC Widows' Association. The couple met when he was sent to the border station of Caledon, Co Tyrone, in 1981.

"I was working on Saturdays in the local shop where Gary and the other RUC men would pop in and buy things on account. We knew almost immediately that we would be together and we married the next year." Const Meyer was later sent to the Queen Street station in central Belfast where most his work involved dealing with shoplifters and illegal traders.

Telling her children their father had been murdered was the hardest thing she had ever had to do, said Mrs Meyer. "They both sat next to me and they were told exactly what happened.

"The wee girl cried her heart out, but the wee fellow just looked at me."

The only time the couple had spoken about the possibility of Const Meyer dying was when they had been watching the funeral of Const William Monteith.

"I was standing there with tears running down my face and he told me he wanted the RUC band to play at his funeral if anything happened to him. He was so proud to be in the RUC." The RUC band played when Const Meyer was buried in Caledon next to the church where he had married. Mrs Meyer said that afterwards Const Cyril Willis, a school friend, had approached her at the graveside.

"He shook my hand and said to me, ` Iona, I'm terribly sorry, but this probably won't be the last'. He himself was killed by an IRA bomb a few weeks later."

Nearly eight years later, the gap in Mrs Meyer's life is still evident. A few months after her husband's death, she said, she heard a thud upstairs. "As well as being into photography, Gary collected mint stamps which he usually brought out when the children had gone to bed.

"The sound was just like one of his big folders on the floor. I went to the bottom of the stairs and called out, ` Gary, if you're not careful you'll wake those children'. Then it dawned on me that it wasn't Gary and it would never be Gary." Shortly afterwards, she moved house.

Mrs Meyer said that, like many other RUC widows, she was now having to cope with anger as well as hurt after the Stormont agreement. "I want peace for my children but not at any price.

"Prisoners are being given their freedom, the basic human right which was denied our husbands. The RUC could be reformed for nothing more than appeasement. It's very wrong and I couldn't vote for this agreement."

Const Meyer's killers were never caught, but other IRA members convicted of murdering RUC men will probably be freed. Gerry Butler, who helped blow up Const Spence McGarry as he visited his mother, is likely to be back on the streets within two years.

Harry McCartney and Tarlac Connolly, who killed Const Willis and his colleagues David Sterritt and William Hanson and a nun in a bomb attack, will also qualify for early release.

"The victims have been forgotten in all this," said Mrs Meyer quietly. "The RUC Widows' Association was never consulted."

The fact that Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness were being hailed as peacemakers and could soon take seats in a devolved government made her "sick to the bottom of my stomach" and afraid of the future.

"I heard John Hume [the SDLP leader] saying we had to leave the past behind. To tell somebody like me to leave the past behind when some of the happiest days of my life are in the past is very hard to accept."

11 April 1998

Leaders shake on Ulster deal

TONY BLAIR promised a new future for Northern Ireland last night as the British and Irish governments joined with the Ulster parties to seal an historic talks agreement. Nearly 17 hours after the midnight settlement deadline, he declared that the work to shift the "immovable object" of conflict in the province had been completed.

The Prime Minister said: "I believe today courage has triumphed. I said when I arrived here that I felt the hand of history upon us. Today I hope that the burden of history can at long last start to be lifted from our shoulders."

President Clinton had earlier intervened by telephone to dampen Unionist fears that the requirement to surrender terrorist weapons would not be enforced as a split in the party threatened to wreck the deal.

The agreement maps out radical new arrangements for a devolved Ulster assembly, a council of ministers linking Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, and limited cross-border bodies to facilitate joint decision-making. It will be put to Ulster voters in a referendum on May 22.

A British-Irish council linking devolved assemblies in the United Kingdom and the London and Dublin governments will also be set up.

Changes to remission rates for terrorist prisoners will lead to the release of nearly all IRA and loyalist prisoners within the next two years. The future of the Royal Ulster Constabulary is to be considered by an independent commission.

Party sources indicated that an assembly would be made up of 108 members - six elected by proportional representation from each of the existing 18 constituencies.

It would be run by an executive committee made up of 12 members. David Trimble, as leader of the Ulster Unionists, the largest party, is in the most favourable position to be first minister with John Hume, leader of the nationalist SDLP, his deputy.

The assembly would have powers to legislate but its first responsibility would be to set up a north-south ministerial council to direct co-operation on a series of issues.

A safeguard to prevent Unionists dragging their heels in setting up the north-south body is the warning that the assembly will be suspended if it does not establish the co-operative body within a year.

The Irish government will amend Articles 2 and 3 of its constitution which lay claim to the territory of Ulster. In return, London will replace the Government of Ireland Act.

There are further proposals for a Council of the Isles with members drawn from north and south as well as the Scottish and Welsh assembly.

Mr Trimble said the Stormont agreement made the Union stronger than ever before. But the weapons issue appeared to have split his party, with Jeffrey Donaldson, a senior negotiator, leaving before the final session. The UUP executive meets today to consider whether to ratify the deal.

Sinn Fein also expressed reservations about the 69-page agreement, pledging only to support it if, after further study, republicans considered it could be a stepping stone to a united Ireland.

Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein president, said: "This is a phase in our struggle. That struggle must continue until it reaches its final goal. We will assess this document in the context of our peace strategy: will it remove the causes of conflict, can it be developed and is it transitional?"

Shaking hands with Bertie Ahern, the Irish premier, Mr Blair emphasised that the agreement represented an opportunity for peace in Northern Ireland and that much difficult work lay ahead.

"It will take more of the courage we have shown, but it need not mean more of the pain.

"Today is only the beginning. It is not the end. Today we have just the sense of the prize that is before us. The work to win that prize goes on," he said.

"In the past few days the irresistible force of the political leaders has been focused on that same immovable object. I believe we have now moved it."

He paid tribute to the work of Mr Ahern and President Clinton in helping to secure agreement and also singled out John Major for his work in laying the foundations of the talks process during his premiership.

Afterwards, Mr Blair flew to Spain, where his wife, Cherie, and three children were waiting for him to join them on holiday.

George Mitchell, the talks chairman, also flew out of Northern Ireland after 22 months presiding over the talks - which participants from all parties admitted yesterday they had never expected to succeed.

Mr Ahern said: "This historic agreement marks a new beginning for all of us. It is a day we should treasure. "Today is about the promise of a bright future - a day when we hope a line can be drawn under the bloody past. We must all see this opportunity.

"On behalf of the Irish government I look forward to closer and stronger links with the island of Ireland and to developing further the excellent relationship between Britain and Ireland."

The Queen and President Clinton - who is expected to visit Northern Ireland next month - were among those who expressed their pleasure at the deal. A Buckingham Palace spokesman said: "The Queen has been following the events of the day very closely. Naturally she shares everyone's delight at the outcome."

Mr Blair's official spokesman said: "The Queen phoned the Prime Minister to express her satisfaction at the agreement reached."

President Clinton's intervention in talking to Mr Trimble just an hour before the agreement was made was believed to have been instrumental. He also spoke to Mr Blair, Mr Ahern, Mr Hume and Mr Adams to encourage them to keep going in the search for agreement.