Dublin
The refusal of the Irish Republican Army to hand over its stockpile of weapons is holding up a peace agreement in Northern Ireland, Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern said this week. “Democratic politics and continued paramilitarism simply do not mix,” Ahern said. A new British-Irish peace plan will only be unveiled, he said, after the IRA definitively renounces violence and hands over its remaining weapons. But at rallies across Ireland to mark the Easter rebellion of 1916, when Irish rebels rose up against their British rulers, IRA spokesmen were unconciliatory. “This is a period for republicans to remain resolute,” an official IRA statement said. The IRA has thousands of guns and explosives, mostly acquired from Libya in the 1980s and believed to be hidden across Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Having a mayor: Starmer's struggles with devolved leadersTalking Point Andy Burnham made public criticisms of the Labour government policies without specifically naming Keir Starmer or Rachel Reeves
-
Why is Nasa facing a crisis?Today's Big Question Trump administration proposes 25% cut to national space agency's budget in 'extinction-level event'
-
The 50-year battle for Western SaharaThe Explainer UK is latest country to back Moroccan plan to end decades-long dispute with Algerian-backed Polisario Front
