Sir, – In the early 1970s, as a Sunday Times reporter, I met Dáithí Ó Conaill, then an influential figure within the Provisional IRA, on a number of occasions.
During several of these encounters he produced from his wallet a number of yellowing newspaper cuttings from the Daily Express that contained cartoons and reports portraying the rebel Greek-Cypriot leader Archbishop Makarios in a most hostile way.
The final cutting in the well-thumbed set contained a picture of the once-reviled archbishop on the steps of 10 Downing Street as president of his country. That will be us one day, Ó Conaill would insist.
It was at the time, and for many years thereafter, as the Provisional IRA’s campaign of violence endured, a most unlikely proposition. In the event, Ó Conaill broke with Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness and his other youthful protégés within the mainstream republican movement in 1988, as they began laying the ground for what would become the inevitable and eventual fulfilment of his vision. Until his death in 1991, his allegiance was instead with what is now designated dissident republicanism.
It is interesting to think what he might have made of the current turn of events he foresaw but could not bring himself to support from the outset as the IRA began the tortuous process of redefining itself as a political movement and ultimately being received in Downing Street. Above all, what would he have thought of Martin McGuinness shaking hands with the British queen? – Yours, etc,