CHURCH AND STATE IN ULSTER TRAGEDY

BRITISH troops were loudly cheered as they arrived in Ireland to restore peace and order. They had the wholehearted backing of a vast majority of the ordinary population.
This fact is a part of history, the history of the mournful "escalation" of events leading up to and flowing from Easter Week 1914. Irish cheers, during that strange, unforgettable week, went, ironically enough, not to the men, brave and idealistic though they were, who had proclaimed the Irish Republic from the General Post Office.
Instead the cheers went to the British soldiers as they marched from what was then called Kingstown to put down the rebellion in Dublin. But all too tragically soon, the whole position had changed.
The saviours—or rather those whom they represented—had become the villains, and the trouble makers had become the heroes.
It is generally agreed that the fatal moment—fatal for ever, with repercussions into our own times—was the decision as to execution by firing squads of the rebel 'leaders; a decision, in the event, only partially carried out. But from that moment onwards violence bred violence. Indeed the Easter Week Rising itself had been precipitated by the disloyal threat from Ulster to oppose, by force if necessary, the coming into effect of 'the Home Rule Bill for a united Ireland, which had already passed both Houses of Parliament.
Such facts as these, and many others, came to be forgotten or ignored as the years went by. Now history repeats itself in horrifying fashion. Once more violence is breeding violence in Ireland, and many of the same mistakes are being made.
It is against this historical background that a desperate plea must be made in the name of civilised people in Britain and Ireland who have become sickened by recent events in Ulster.
The plea is two-fold. It 'asks for the immediate suspension of internment without trial of civilian "suspects"; and for the most unambiguous condemnation of terrorism that can possibly be made. The Church alone has the authority to make such a condemnation. And only a fear that the faithful will not respect its words could conceivably inhibit this powerful and hitherto respected Church from speaking out in so dark an hour.
Only if these two things, suspension of internment and condemnation of terrorism, do occur, can an atmosphere be created in which a "political solution" is even remotely possible.