GREAT BRITAIN: The Gunmen

Tommy (fiercely): I'm bloody well tired o' waitin' — we're all tired o' waitin'.

Why isn't every man in Ireland out with the I.R.A.?

— The Shadow of a Gunman,

by Sean O'Casey

In 34 years of waiting for a peaceful end to the partition of their country, the Irish from time to time turn to thoughts of violence. When they do, they think of the Irish Republican Army, an outgrowth of the Sinn Fein movement, which has a romantic place in the Irish imagination. Last week, after the I.R.A.'s audacious raid on a British army barracks just 40 miles west of...

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