Focus: Northern Ireland; The spying game - how to beat the IRA.

(From Independent on Sunday)

Byline: Andrew Gilligan

Someone in the Northern Ireland security forces clearly has a touch of showbiz in his soul. The spectacle of the police in their Swat gear marching through the halls of Stormont - Sinn Fein's Bairbre de Brun in shrill pursuit - made superb telly. And wasn't it lucky that the cameras were there to watch? But like most stories, there's more to it than the pictures.

The real evidence of the IRA's alleged "spy ring" in government was not collected by the bobbies in baseball caps rooting through the Stormont desks. The new disclosures were not isolated events, merely the latest and flashiest episode in what is normally a much more secret struggle - the intelligence war between Britain and the IRA. Even during the Troubles, at least in the later stages, the intelligence war was described by some as the real conflict. And it is a war - unlike the shooting variety - that is still being fought.

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