A Farewell To Arms

As the four men suspected of trying to bomb London's transport system on July 21 were apprehended last week, another group of terrorists said it was laying down its weapons. In a DVD video, I.R.A. veteran Seanna Walsh — who spent 21 years in prison for munitions offenses — stood before an Irish flag to read a statement formally ending the organization's 36-year armed campaign to force Britain out of Northern Ireland. By ordering its members to "dump arms" and adopt "exclusively peaceful means," the I.R.A. leadership signaled that their decades-long quest for Irish unity now rests in the hands of their political counterparts in Sinn Fein. The statement prompted a sudden surge forward in the peace process. The British army began demolishing some of its remaining installations, and the I.R.A. said it was ready to dispose of all its weapons with witnesses from the Protestant and Catholic churches present.

But can Northern Ireland's Troubles end that easily? Unionists, led by Ian Paisley, a fiery Free Presbyterian preacher, point out that the I.R.A. has made lots of promises in the past without ever fully giving up violent and criminal activities — or intimidating witnesses so that no one is ever prosecuted. "Does [the statement] mean that if they're involved in crimes, the rule of law applies to them the same as everybody else?" asks Paula McCartney, whose brother Robert was murdered by I.R.A. members in January in a bar brawl. One man is awaiting trial for the killing, but police suspect at least nine people were involved in the attack. "It's time to put some meat on the bones," says Alan McBride, whose wife and father-in-law were killed by an I.R.A. bomb in 1993. "People judge them on what they do." To address the skepticism, leaders in London and Dublin asked a watchdog body to report next January on whether the I.R.A. is sticking to its vow.

Many of the approximately 1,500 I.R.A. members could well enter the political struggle for a united Ireland by working for Sinn Fein. In the seven years since the Good Friday Agreement brought a fragile peace, Sinn Fein has grown while the I.R.A.'s influence waned. Led by Gerry Adams, Sinn Fein is now the biggest nationalist party in Northern Ireland, with 24 seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly. And they have gradually become an influential political force in the Irish Republic, too, where they even threaten Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern's hold on working-class North Dublin. But there's also a risk that splinter groups could keep the violence going. "Nothing has changed," a defiant source from the Continuity I.R.A. told Time. "There is still a British presence that has to be removed." To counter that threat, I.R.A. members will need to show the same determination to keep the peace as they once displayed to wage war.