A Political Respite

Political campaigns, of a sort, were taking place in both Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic last week. The violence in Ulster had not exactly stopped. Two Catholic mailmen were ambushed and machine-gunned to death one afternoon, and three British soldiers were killed during the week. A new technique of terrorism was also discovered: the booby-trapping of some books on the shelves of a Londonderry public library. But the center of attention, for once, was not the mindless murder of innocents but the British government's latest efforts to restore some kind of political order.

In the year since Britain declared direct rule over Northern Ireland, it has lost 98 of its own troops while trying to contain a spreading violence that has caused more than 300 civilian deaths. At the same time, the Protestant and Catholic communities have grown farther apart than ever, physically as well as ideologically. A still secret housing study of Belfast reveals that a large-scale population shift within the troubled city has taken place during the past two years. As of 1971, about 25% of the people in public housing projects lived in mixed areas; today virtually none do. More than 10,000 families have moved since 1969, half within the past year alone; about 80% are Catholics who have taken refuge in deteriorating West Belfast, which is fast becoming the city's single, sprawling Catholic ghetto.

The first step in the British government's formula for a political solution is a national referendum this week. The question to be voted on: whether the province should retain its links with the United Kingdom or should join the Irish Republic. The result is a foregone conclusion, since the Protestant majority overwhelmingly supports British ties. Many Catholics, in fact, have threatened to boycott this week's vote because they know they have not a chance to win. "The results of this referendum," scoffs Catholic Politician Gerry Fitt, "were determined 50 years ago."

The British government will doubtless interpret the results as a vindication of its present policies. Almost immediately, it is expected to release its long-promised White Paper defining the future political status of Northern Ireland. The document reportedly will not call for a restoration of Ulster's Protestant-dominated Stormont Parliament, which was suspended a year ago. Instead, it will most likely create committees with responsibility for various sections of government; committee chairmanships will be carefully apportioned between Protestants and Catholics. The Special Powers Act, under which several hundred Catholics have been detained without trial, will be ended immediately, but security powers will be retained by Westminster until troop levels decline to something approaching peacetime strength. The paper will also recommend the creation of a Council of Ireland including representatives from the Republic as well as the North; its responsibilities will be limited to such areas as agricultural policy, trade and tourism.

Neither Catholics nor Protestants have shown much enthusiasm for what they have heard of the plan. "The old system at least had the support of the majority," says William Craig, who has become the most audible voice of Protestant extremism. "The new one is only unique in that everyone will be against it." His own proposal is for an independent "Ulster dominion," to be created in coalition with Catholic leaders. Craig's radical scheme has its merits; for the moment, it is rendered impossible by the same thing that will hinder this week's referendum: the deep-seated distrust between Northern Ireland's two communities.

Meanwhile, voters in the Irish Republic will be going to the polls in a parliamentary election unexpectedly called last month by Prime Minister Jack Lynch. In the relatively peaceful South, political demonstrators throw eggs instead of bombs. "Release the prisoners and let Sean go!" cried a group of radical hecklers at a Lynch rally last week, referring to Sean MacStiofain and other Provisional I.R.A. leaders who have been jailed under the government's crackdown on subversives. Then the demonstrators lobbed a dozen eggs at the speaker's platform. The unflappable Lynch quickly used the incident to bolster his argument for a strong government to guard against the kind of turmoil taking place in the North. "You have witnessed the need for it," the Taoiseach (leader) declared.

Wedding. Lynch's real problem was the surprising headway being made against his Fianna Fail Party by a coalition of the conservative Fine Gael Party and the socialist Labor Party. The unlikely partnership was derisively labeled a shotgun wedding by Fianna Fail orators. In fact, the parties have been coalition partners twice before (in 1948-51 and again in 1954-57). This time Lynch's opposition has proposed a plausible program aimed at what many Irishmen are most concerned about: the cost of living, high taxes, inflation and unemployment.

Though Lynch had hoped to win "a clear and decisive mandate," he admitted last week that the results might be close. As the two sides argued over the best way to spend $73.5 million in refunded EEC agricultural subsidies, Lynch caught his opponents off balance by promising to abolish property taxes, which bring the government $86 million a year. The money, he added blandly, could be raised later.

Most Fianna Fail leaders still believed, however, that security against violence was the key issue. "If you have a bullet in your chest," said Justice Minister Desmond O'Malley, "you're not worried about the price of meat."

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