IRELAND: A New Effort for the North

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And a warning to the U.S. from Prime Minister Lynch

Six weeks ago, on his trip to Ireland, Pope John Paul II made an impassioned supplication: "On my knees I beg you to turn away from the paths of violence." The Pope's plea did not reach those who needed it most. Protestant paramilitary groups in the North had already vowed vengeance in the wake of August's Bloody Monday, when Lord Mountbatten and three of his party were killed and 18 British troops massacred.

And the Provisional Irish Republican Army, ostensible champions of Northern Ireland's Roman Catholic minority, rejected the Pontiffs appeal brusquely: "In all conscience we believe that force is the only means of removing the evil of the British presence in Ireland."

Force it has been, on both sides. In the time since the Pope's visit, eleven have died in the unending violence. Though the number of active I.R.A. members remains small—600 to 700, against 30,000 British troops and police—their lightning ambushes have grown even harder to combat as their equipment and weapons have become more sophisticated.

The British response has been to tighten security and try again for a political solution to the Ulster conundrum. Margaret Thatcher's Tory government has installed a trio of new commanders in Northern Ireland, headed by Britain's famed spy master, Sir Maurice Oldfield, as supreme "security coordinator" for the area. There is a new level of cooperation between Dublin and London on security measures, notably in a secret agreement that allows helicopters of each side to overfly borders for up to ten miles in pursuit of terrorists.

The Republic has good reason to help: so far this year, armed bandits assumed to be I.R.A. gunmen have made 188 raids on banks, post offices and payroll offices in the South, making off with more than $3 million.

A long-term solution seems as elusive as ever. The Thatcher government has proposed an all-party conference in Northern Ireland to consider new initiatives, but the principal Protestant group, the Official Unionist Party, and the predominantly Catholic Social Democratic and Labor Party have both rejected the proposal. British officials nevertheless hope to get the parties to the table.

The new effort in the North is supported by an anxious voice from the South —that of Eire's Prime Minister Jack Lynch. This week Lynch is in the U.S. to talk with President Jimmy Carter and Irish-American leaders about the problems affecting both the North and South of Ireland. He is clearly no hard-liner in his attitudes. He castigates the I.R.A., despite criticism of his stance from the left wing of his own Fianna Fail party. He is willing to view Irish unity as a distant dream to be reached only after considerable evolution, but on one premise he is adamant: that Northern Ireland is not an integral part of Britain, and must not be ruled completely from Westminster.