NORTHERN IRELAND / In the Shadow of the Gunmen

"The country is gone mad. Instead of

countin' their beads, now they're countin' bullets;

their Hail Marys and their paternosters are burstin' bombs —burstin'

bombs, an' the rattle of machine guns; petrol is their holy water;

their mass is a burnin' buildin'; their De Profundis is 'The Soldiers'

Song,' an' their creed is, 1 believe in the gun almighty, maker of

heaven and earth —an' it's all for the glory o' God an' the honor o'

Ireland."

—Sean O'Casey, The Shadow of a Gunman

THE shadow that fell across O'Casey's Dublin during the 1920s has become the...