THE majority of British newspaper editorials preferred to write about the "war" between the Prince and Princess of Wales this weekend rather than the "shattering" of the Northern Ireland peace process.
Not surprisingly, the editorials of the three papers that chose to comment upon the future of the peace process rather than Princess Diana's were decidedly pessimistic.
The Sunday Telegraph described Northern Ireland as being on the "brink of mere anarchy" while the Sunday Mirror suggested it is on the edge of "the suicidal plunge back into sectarian self destruction".
In a hardline editorial, the Sunday Telegraph blames this week's violence on the British and Irish governments for alienating the unionists by continually "wooing" the Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, even after the IRA ended the 17 month ceasefire by bombing Canary Wharf.
"The aspirations of those who would see Ireland unified have never been greater. But as nationalist confidence has waxed, so too have unionist fears. The Protestant community is now behaving less like the proud majority in the Province than an embattled minority within the island of Ireland.
"The discontent of the past few days reflects not only the legacy of the Province's sectarian past but the quite specific sense of betrayal which has been nurtured among Unionists during the peace process," the editorial argues.
With the failure of the peace process, the paper suggests the only solution now is to "bolster the Union" and completely allay unionist fears and vulnerability.
"Northern Ireland needs to be more like the rest of Britain rather than less. It needs healthy Conservative and Labour parties. It needs robust institutions of local democracy. Such objectives have never been part of the peace process. But that process is over."
The same view was espoused in Saturday's Daily Telegraph, whose editorial also suggested that the 1985 Anglo Irish Agreement should now be scrapped to ensure Ireland cannot continue "playing a destabilising role" in the affairs of Northern Ireland.
"The Irish state appears to be pursuing a coherent strategy of slowly stripping Ulster (symbolically as well as substantively) of its Britishness, while its British counterpart seems considerably more neutral about its role as the guarantor of the Unionists' position . . . . Unless the British government reasserts its exclusive prerogatives in the loyal province, the result will be years of instability of the kind witnessed throughout the course of the past week," the paper argues.
However, the Sunday Mirror's editorial called upon both communities to work together to save the peace process and ensure the "thugs and fanatics" do not win.