Global, parochial, still anti‐imperialist and Irish

Abstract

As the end of the 1990s, indeed as the close of the millennium approaches, one of the major conflicts of the Western world still to be resolved is that of Northern Ireland. True, the guns on the streets have fallen silent, and the stockpiles of semtex have not been used in the last three years by the main paramilitary groups. Yet problems still endure. Punishment beatings, knee‐cappings and other forms of intimidation are still common amongst both the Protestant and Catholic populations. Dissident groups such as the Real IRA have shown, as they did in August 1998 in Omagh when they killed 28 people, that they have the capacity to wreck lives. All this in a period of a sustained peace process.