Madam, - David Adams's analysis of the changing climate in which the Provisional IRA operated (Opinion & Analysis, September 1st) convincingly explains why those previously blind to reason finally gave up.
I would demur on one point - his use of "mainstream republican movement" as shorthand for Sinn Féin/PIRA. Unless one assumes that all republicans espouse armed conflict, these violent elements are nowhere near the mainstream of republicanism, but rather are turbulent eddies on its far right. The fact that there are even more splinter groups doesn't make Sinn Féin/PIRA mainstream.
Consider the other parties that have republican credentials. In the Republic, two currents have their source in the first Dáil - the Fine Gael tradition, to which we owe the substance, and later the description, of the State, and Fianna Fáil, which gave it its constitutional form; also the Labour Party, egalitarian since before 1916. In Northern Ireland, the SDLP stands for republican principles. These are the mainstream of republicanism. Out on the left is the "Official" IRA, which long ago renounced violence.
Republicanism not being intrinsically violent, it is regrettable that armed groups have for decades been allowed to monopolise use of the adjective "republican" without an added qualifier such as "physical-force". Bearing that in mind (and to continue the aquatic metaphor), Sinn Féin could perhaps be called "the ebb tide of republican violence" and the Provos "a paramilitary cataract". ("Cataract" has an apt ambiguity, as it combines ferocity with terminal blindness.) - Yours, etc,
MICHAEL DRURY, Avenue Louise, Brussels, Belgium.