We are not ready for an escalation of violence in Ulster

Dean Godson says that this week’s murders have yielded impressive displays of cross-party unity. But they also draw attention to Northern Ireland’s vulnerability to terrorist attack, and the risks that were always inherent in the dismantling of the Province’s security structure

‘After they die, they will be forgotten, just as the policemen and soldiers who died are forgotten after a while, except by those who loved them.’ So said Florence Cobb, widow of RUC Inspector Harry Cobb, murdered in Lurgan by the Provisional IRA in 1977. I recalled those simple but powerful words when I heard that Constable Stephen Paul Carroll had been murdered by dissident Republicans on Monday night — just five miles away in Craigavon, Co. Armagh.

I had a horrible sense of déjà vu — not just about the murders themselves, but also about the near uniform reaction to them. I can remember a time when there was a consensus about the wickedness of murdering RUC officers — save among Republicans, whose electoral support was anyhow negligible in the pre-Hunger Strikes era.