Independent News and Media blame IRA for McDowell attack

national | crime and justice | opinion/analysis Wednesday February 16, 2005 10:50 by Séamus Ó Cadhain - none

Today's Irish Independent is inferring that the IRA is to blame for an attack on the French windows at Michael McDowell's holiday home.

Having carried out some of the most high-profile guerilla bombings of the late twentieth century, the IRA now stand accused of shattering their record for "spectaculars" by shattering the glass on Michael McDowell's French windows, as is inferred by today's story in the Irish Independent.

Intrepid "security correspondent" Tom Brady writes, in the context of his report on this potentially devastating blow to the Peace Process:

"Mr McDowell has been an outspoken critic of the Provisional IRA's involvement in criminality for the past couple of years, and a series of hard-hitting attacks on the movement's participation in punishment shootings, robberies, smuggling and intimidation has provoked fury among leading republican figures.

The minister is now the principal "hate" figure for the Provisionals and has clashed repeatedly with them since it emerged in December that they were refusing to sign up to an end in criminality as part of a peace deal."

Apparently a revenge motive has been ruled out, as the glass is believed to have remained relatively static in recent months and not to have been engaged in any offensive actions against the IRA. A source tells me, however, that French authorities have stepped up security, as they belive the attack on "French windows" may herald a new IRA bombing campaign in France.

The source also said that it is senior members of Sinn Féin, who double as PIRA leaders, are believed to have sanctioned the attack.

The PD vote, which broke the 50,000 no-one-knows-who-you-are line in the last election, is believed to have the Provisionals running scared. Security is to be stepped up on other members of Dáil Éireann in anticipation of further attacks on glass objects, and sources at the famous Louvre glass building in Paris have confirmed that they have placed snipers on nearby roofs.

Meanwhile, the residents of Roosky, Co. Roscommon, are said to be deeply traumatised by the attack. One local farmer, Feisty O'Shaugnessy, said that the attack had "deeply worried" local residents. Picking up a handful of glass shards, he commented:

"Words cannot express the fear that this is creating in the local community. The IRA have to stop this mayhem."