Northern Ireland in 2006

Stone Cold Sweat
The ceasefires are still intact, and 2006 mercifully came and went without any serious threat of a return to the abyss in Northern Ireland. While the opposing camps may not have exactly learned to love one another, all the evidence appears to show that Northern Ireland’s politicians have become rather fond of their Stormont salaries, and aren’t exactly in a rush to see the institutions collapse. By and large, the paramilitaries have also managed to ‘hold the line’.

There were exceptions, inevitably. In March, double agent Denis Donaldson was murdered in Donegal. There’s still confusion as to who was responsible. Unionist groups and many mainstream news outlets were quick to point the finger at the IRA, while Sinn Fein have suggested that such an operation certainly wouldn’t be beyond the capabilities of British intelligence services.
In May, in the staunchly loyalist town of Ballymena, a 15-year-old Catholic named Michael McIlveen was chased from a cinema by a loyalist mob, who caught him and beat him to death. The murder drew condemnation from all sides of the political divide, but there was a sickening postscript when a handful of individuals subsequently used the popular website bebo.com to boast of their involvement in the murder, to accuse others of participation, and to insult the dead youth’s memory.
In October, after tortuously slow progress, the political parties agreed a power-sharing deal at St. Andrews. It’s intended to be implemented after fresh Assembly elections in March, though the ever-reliable Dr. Ian Paisley and his DUP cohorts have hinted that they may refuse to play ball unless Sinn Fein declares its support for the new squeaky-clean police service.
Such dull procedural details, of course, came to be completely overshadowed by the astonishing events of November 24th, when the prolific loyalist murderer Michael ‘Stoner’ Stone burst into Stormont buildings, armed with a gun, a knife and a bag containing at least six explosives, in an apparent attempt to kill Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness. He was intercepted by security and, as his loyalist rival Johnny ‘Mad Dog’ Adair sneeringly noted, had the gun wrestled from his grasp by a female security officer. Subsequent testimonies from those who know Stone have indicated that his extraordinary actions were part of a desperate bid to be returned to prison, the only place he feels ‘safe’ from a perceived IRA plot to assassinate him. Others feel that the man more appropriately belongs in a secure psychiatric institution. At the time of going to print, Stone’s precise future is unknown. b