24 September 1998 Edition
Editor's desk
You will have read - here and in other newspapers - how the nationalist residents of Portadown have been intimidated out of their town centre by Loyalists as part of a campaign aimed at forcing an Orange march down the Garvaghy Road. In particular nationalists have been spat at and abused in the High Street Mall shopping centre.
Well, on Monday the Irish Times had a different slant on it. In an unsigned article they said that the High Street Mall was a contentious area ``as rival gangs vie for control of the `territory'''.
Another Irish Times journalist, the well-known `expert' on the Republican Movement, Suzanne Breen, has a column in Fortnight magazine. In the latest issue, written after the Omagh bomb, Breen tells us that before the bomb, ``the Provisionals' entire Southern Command had collapsed. In the Republic, the Real IRA is the IRA.''
She goes on: ``Provisional IRA leaders have passed on valuable information to the security forces about their former colleagues''.
It is fair to ask what this dangerous nonsense is based on. Suzanne Breen is an award-winning journalist. Does she really believe what she has written? Or is she simply picking up on a herd instinct whereby mischievous briefings are printed and reprinted often enough for them to become established fact?
Who was the man looking longingly through the wire into Long Kesh this week? None other than Bik McFarlane, pining for a quiet walk in the yard.
Well, on Monday the Irish Times had a different slant on it. In an unsigned article they said that the High Street Mall was a contentious area ``as rival gangs vie for control of the `territory'''.
Another Irish Times journalist, the well-known `expert' on the Republican Movement, Suzanne Breen, has a column in Fortnight magazine. In the latest issue, written after the Omagh bomb, Breen tells us that before the bomb, ``the Provisionals' entire Southern Command had collapsed. In the Republic, the Real IRA is the IRA.''
She goes on: ``Provisional IRA leaders have passed on valuable information to the security forces about their former colleagues''.
It is fair to ask what this dangerous nonsense is based on. Suzanne Breen is an award-winning journalist. Does she really believe what she has written? Or is she simply picking up on a herd instinct whereby mischievous briefings are printed and reprinted often enough for them to become established fact?
Who was the man looking longingly through the wire into Long Kesh this week? None other than Bik McFarlane, pining for a quiet walk in the yard.