Reviewing events in March in the Twenty-Six counties that make up the partitioned Republic of Ireland, and in the Six Counties (out of nine) that make up the statelet of Northern Ireland, makes sorry reading.

Instead of presenting a united front against imperialism, there was the spectacle of Irishman attacking Irishman, of Dubliner Ahern seeking to demonise Belfast man Adams.

They must have been laughing in Portadown. The old rule "divide and conquer" was giving them comfort once more.

Predictably a Dublin politician failed miserably in his attempt to lecture a nationalist party in the Six Counties. Bereft of authority, moral or otherwise, in his message to those who had been struggling, even fighting, against oppression by "a Protestant parliament for a Protestant people" for more than eighty years, he echoed the refrain of "Croppies lie down".

What brought things to such a pass? Not hard to answer.

As related in an article in this e-zine last December:

"The results of the election of members to the suspended Six County Assemble at Stormont have sent shivers through the ranks of Twenty-Six County politicians. Their comfortable status of eighty odd years is threatened."

Sinn Fein emerged as the major nationalist party in the Six County election. And Sinn Fein is a Thirty-two county Ireland political party. It has elected representatives in both the Belfast Assembly and the Dublin Dáil.

It poses a real threat to Dublin politicians claiming to be patriots.

Not long afterwards Ahern's campaign against Adams began. He openly feigned ignorance by asking was Adams, the politician, a member of the I.R.A. Tut, tut, tut!

And when the answer was "No", he said he had always assumed Adams had been a member.

What planet had the Taoiseach been inhabiting since 1970?

Desperate to cover his flanks, he sallied forth into "the North", to moralise and denounce, to flagellate and upbraid, to posture and pontificate, at Magee University, in Derry City the site of "Bloody Sunday", in the month of March.

He was met by protesters holding placards calling on him "to start supporting the peace process and stop standing idly by".

In his lecture Ahern asserted continuing republican violence was damaging hopes of reaching a final settlement in Northern Ireland.

"The continuation of paramilitary activity by the republican movement negates any prospect of achieving inclusive partnership politics in Northern Ireland," he said.

Mr. Ahern said he agreed with Prime Minister Tony Blair's assertion that the people of Northern Ireland wanted the republican movement to commit to peace and unionists to commit to power sharing.

"For that to happen, the republican movement needs to fully understand and accept the imperative of definitively ending - both in words and deeds - the culture of paramilitarism," he said. "And unionism needs to unequivocally embrace the principle and practice of inclusive partnership politics."

There you have it. The voice of reason, the voice of understanding, the voice of Dublin. "Be good little boys and girls. Kiss and make up. Carry on playing in your own little sandbox at Stormont. Leave patriotism to us. We're very good talking about it."

Indeed they are. They have been doing it for nearly eighty years.

A few days later one of his colleagues painted Sinn Fein as akin to Nazism. Not even Ian Paisley himself could match that. "Nazi\Sinn Fein\IRA". What next?

The virulence of the slurs only emphasizes what has been pointed out already.

"The results of the election of members to the suspended Six County Assemble at Stormont have sent shivers through the ranks of Twenty-Six County politicians. Their comfortable status of eighty odd years is threatened."

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