SOMEBODY said that even high tragedy turns into farce when you sit down.

If it be so, then the devastating tragedy of Northern Ireland had its moment of low farce during the Conservative conference when the members of the Monday Club, sitting listening to Mr Airey Neave, applauded when he congratulated Mr [Liam] Cosgrave on his security measures.

The fatuous assumption that Ireland’s security measures, which have been steadily increasing ever since August 1969, have something to do with England is the crux of the whole vast, vague, addle-headed misunderstanding of Ireland which has so bedevilled relations between the two countries.

It would be unfair to the English, and indeed even to the Tories, to regard the Monday Club,........

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