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Last week the British government made strong representation to the Republic's Prime Minister John Costello to crush the I.R.A. before its gunmen trigger real trouble in Northern Ireland. But it was doubtful whether Costello, who presides over a coalition government, is strong enough to do what De Valera had done. In Costello's Cabinet there are men who agree with ex-Foreign Minister Sean MacBride (son of the late famed Patriot Maud Gonne, and himself an old I.R.A. man) who said: "While the I.R.A. voices the national sentiment of the people, no Irish government would place itself in the position of fighting it."
*Four of the six counties in Northern Ireland (Antrim, Armagh, Londonderry and Down) have Protestant majorities, but in the two west-border counties of Fermanagh and Tyrone, Catholics form about 55% of the population.
*His communiqués are grudgingly admired by the British for their scrupulous accuracy. He did not claim credit for a raid on a North Wales army camp two days later by masked men with what sounded like Irish accents. At week's end four young British army officers admitted staging the raid as a hoax.