MILITANT REPUBLICANISM has “not yet been satisfied” and poses a serious challenge to the Northern Ireland security forces, a former British army commanding officer, General Sir John Wilsey, warned last night.
The general, who was general officer commanding (GOC) in Northern Ireland between 1990 and 1993, last night in London launched Dr Martyn Frampton’s Legion of the Rearguard: Dissident Irish Republicanism, based on interviews with leading dissidents.
Dr Frampton’s conclusion, he said, “is the same that I reached, which is that Irish republicanism has not yet been satisfied and the dissident element of Irish republicanism has not gone away”.
While most people in Great Britain “feel that Ireland is at peace and that it is over, those of us who are in touch with what goes on across the water know very well that that is not so”, said Gen Wilsey, who previously served as a British army company and battalion commander in the North.
“If I had been in the IRA I would be saying, did we achieve our goal? Did we unite Ireland? Are we closer to a United Ireland now than we were when we first started? And the answer to that is manifestly that we are not.”
