NORTHERN IRELAND / In the Shadow of the Gunmen

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The I.R.A., in fact, thrives as much on failures as successes: martyrs who are caught in the act are as useful to the cause as terrorists who get away. Unlike the abortive campaign of 1956-62, when many Ulster Catholics refused to aid or shelter the gunmen, the present guerrilla war has the overwhelming sympathy of Northern Ireland's Catholic minority. Thanks to the one-sided enforcement of the internment laws and the massive presence of the British troops, the Catholics are now almost wholly alienated from Stormont. The only question is whether it will be the I.R.A. or the nonviolent politicians of the Social and Democratic Labor Party opposition who will speak for them when negotiations for a settlement begin.

The Provos do not expect to win the war in conventional military terms. Their strategy is to make the crisis so costly that the British government will be forced into direct rule, thus bringing about a London-Dublin confrontation over Ulster. Army officials believe that terrorism has shocked the British into rethinking their attitudes and that this has brought unification nearer. If this is so, the gamble on the gun may well succeed.

The I.R.A. assault has done more than anything else in 50 years to turn British policy toward finding ways to end the haunting question of Britain's first colony. Labor Party Leader Harold Wilson has suggested a 15-point, 15-year program for unification that has been welcomed in principle by Prime Minister Heath's government. Even in Ulster, the Rev. Ian Paisley, leader of the Protestant militants, has declared that traditional Unionism is finished, and formed his own breakaway group, the Democratic Unionist Party, without ties to the Orange Order. Ulster Prime Minister Faulkner has intimated that Paisley has been talking with Provisional leaders, and that the army is now beginning to see the Paisleyites "as people with whom some sort of a deal might be done."

Stake in the Future. Fear of a Westminster "sellout" now dominates the Protestant community, despite assurances by Faulkner and Heath. MacStiofáin contends that these fears are unjustified: "We have no interest in treating the Protestants harshly. We don't want them to leave the North. We want them to accept that they are Irish, that they have a stake in the future of this country."

Such words are small reassurance to dedicated Unionists like Billy Hull, chairman of the Loyalist Association of Workers (L.A.W.). Hull worries that Ulster may be abandoned by "perfidious Albion" and that Protestants may share the fate of those prewar "Czechoslovaks who woke up one morning and found themselves Germans." Says Hull: "If we're sold down the drain, there wouldn't be civil war. There would be armed rebellion against the government of Britain."

Thus unification could well lead to a bloody replay of the present situation, with Protestant guerrillas taking up arms for their liberties. Clearly, their rights would have to be ensured in a united, predominantly Catholic Ireland —although it is far from clear just how. The Provos, who tend to be rather cloudy in their thinking about the political future, favor a federation of Ireland's four ancient provinces (Ulster, Munster, Leinster and Connaught), each with its own parliament and a measure of internal autonomy.