Fall From Grace; A brutal killing shows the IRA's true colors. But will it erode the public's support?

Byline: William Underhill

Paula McCartney believes in plain speaking. Six weeks ago her brother Robert was battered and stabbed to death after coming to the aid of a friend caught up in a barroom brawl in Belfast. No one has been charged, but she knows exactly who's to blame. "These individuals are society misfits who have committed heinous crimes from rape and pedophilia to domestic violence," she told NEWSWEEK. "The man who stuck a knife into Robert's chest is a well-known psychopath. Can you imagine a psychopath with power?"

Brave words. The "psychopath" and his accomplices are members of the IRA, de facto masters of large tracts of Belfast's inner city. In their public demands for justice, Paula McCartney and her four sisters have breached the code of silence that has helped the republican paramilitaries enforce their rule. What's more, the sisters have confronted the world with a truth that has often passed unnoticed in Northern Ireland's progress toward peace. Once, the IRA was about armed struggle. At least among its supporters, IRA members could pose as "freedom fighters" for the republican cause. More than a decade into the peace process, however, the IRA looks more like a sinister underground of thugs and racketeers. If further proof was needed, it came from the IRA itself: a macabre offer from the leadership to shoot Robert McCartney's killers without trial rather than hand them over to the police.

The IRA's true colors have long been recognized, of course. People looked the other way for fear of jeopardizing the peace process embodied in the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. But since the IRA's suspected involvement in a 26 million pound raid on the Northern Bank in Ireland last December, the largest such heist in European history, that's begun to change. Almost overnight, exasperated politicians have dropped the double-speak and moral fudging--politely termed "constructive ambiguity"--that have clouded dealings with the IRA and its political arm, Sinn Fein. "We are no longer prepared to accept the farce that Sinn Fein and the IRA are separate," says Irish Defence Minister Willie O'Dea.

For Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams in particular, it's an abrupt fall from grace. Not long ago he was leader of the fastest-growing party in the Irish Republic, tipped as a future president. He seemed to have put behind him allegations by the Irish and British governments that he was in fact a member of the IRA's ruling council--allegations that he had always denied. Now his approval ratings in the republic have plunged and his prospects are in the tank. In the North, Sinn Fein had pushed past the more moderate Social Democratic and Labour Party to attract the largest share of the nationalist vote. Opinion polls suggest that support is on the slide. Revealingly, more than 40 percent of Sinn Fein voters also say the IRA should disband. And new graffiti have appeared on the walls of the Short Strand district, the Roman Catholic enclave where Paula McCartney lives: IRA DISBAND NOW. NO JUSTICE. NO PEACE

The wording suggests that a new sense of reality may be taking hold in Northern Ireland. Ceasefire or not, Northern Ireland has never seen perfect peace or a universal return to the rule of law. Yes, the 35-year cycle of bombings and sectarian murders has ended. But in the run-down housing projects of Belfast and Londonderry, the IRA and its Protestant counterparts have continued to dispense their own brutish form of justice. Over the past five years, police believe, republican activists have carried out 15 killings and more than 250 shootings, often acting as a self-appointed police force. Scores have been left maimed or crippled after so-called punishment beatings that have nothing to do with politics. The assailants rarely if ever come before the courts. After all, who would dare to testify against the IRA? Just look at the McCartney case. Immediately after the murder, IRA heavies barged into the pub and "cleaned up" the crime scene. They removed tapes from surveillance cameras, destroyed forensic evidence--and ordered witnesses to stay silent, or else. As many as 70 people had been drinking at the downtown bar. Not one has come forward to the authorities with useful evidence.

Petty thuggery--even murder with ...