A Farewell to Arms

By Chris Thornton

As messengers go, Seanna Walsh certainly had street cred. The I.R.A. veteran had spent 21 years in prison for a series of offenses, including bombmaking, before he delivered a statement last week formally ending the organization's 36-year armed campaign to force Britain out of Northern Ireland. But skeptics noted that the group had made promises in the past without ever fully giving up violence--or the intimidation of witnesses to foil prosecutions. To address the doubters, Cabinet members in London and Dublin asked a watchdog agency to report next January on whether the I.R.A. is sticking to its vow. "It's time to put some meat on the bones," said Alan McBride, whose wife and father-in-law were killed by a 1993 I.R.A. bomb.

That task will fall largely to Gerry Adams, who has led the group's political arm, Sinn Fein, as it evolved into Northern Ireland's largest nationalist party, aided by an I.R.A. cease-fire over most of the past decade. But Adams' effort will be difficult if splinter groups keep up the violence. "Nothing has changed," a member of a splinter group told TIME. "There is still a British presence that has to be removed." The I.R.A. will need to show the same determination to keep the peace as it once displayed to wage the war. --By Chris Thornton. With reporting by Mairead Carey

With reporting by Mairead Carey