NO SOONER had the bomb exploded at the Docklands last week than the search for explanations began. No one doubted who set it. The question was who was to blame?
Was it John Major, who was named by the bombers and heavily criticised by an IRA spokesman in an interview in An Phoblacht?
Or David Trimble and the unionists, blamed by some nationalists and the IRA spokesman for dragging their heels on change, by insisting on unnecessary elections?
Or John Bruton, Dick Spring and Proinsias De Rossa who've been accused, though in a minor key and by some minor characters like Seamus Brennan and Ray Burke, of not exerting enough pressure on the British and the unionists?
True, Mr Major's failure to see the great value of the Mitchell report was close to inexcusable. And Mr Trimble replied in curmudgeonly style to a civil invitation to talk.
But there is an assumption abroad that the people who decided on, planned, set and detonated a bomb in the heart of London were incapable of making up their own minds and doing the job themselves.
There's a feeling that after well over a year's regular contact with politicians at the most senior levels - on mainland Europe, in the United States and Ireland - representatives of Sinn Fein/IRA are still unsteady on their feet.
Some commentators think they are either incapable of dealing with the common frustrations of politics or are not yet responsible for their own actions. That the defence "It went off in my hand, your honour" is still open to them.
Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness, Mitchel McLaughlin, Lucilita Breatnach and the others are, as far as can be judged, as alert and agile as any other public performers, except for their habit of retreating behind thickets, of jargon when they find themselves in a corner.
Unfortunately they deal a lot in double speak, accusing others of selective condemnation, for instance, when it is; they who condemn all comers bar the IRA.
The Canary Wharf bomb was planted by the Provisional IRA, or Oglaigh na hEireann as they call themselves when they want to underline their claim to be, not only the defenders but the government of an all Ireland state. (The state may be mythical; the means used to promote it are not).
Since the 1920s the army council of the IRA - not Sinn Fein, though it's often described as the political wing of the republican movement - has considered itself to be the legitimate government of Ireland.
Its authority derives, in the first instance, from the 1918 (British) general election and the first Dail held in the Mansion House in the following year.
The line descended through survivors of that and later assemblies, old men with glittering eyes who had taken neither the Treaty side in the Civil War nor, in due course, succumbed to the blandishments of Fianna Fail.
Tom O'Dwyer of Mayo was one I remember being introduced at a function about a quarter of a century ago. Ruairi O Bradaigh and Daithi O Conaill led him towards a closed session where delegates' were pledging loyalty to the IRA, the armed struggle or it may have been the government of Ireland.
We have no way of knowing whether Mr Adams and Mr McGuinness are members of the army council, though it, must be presumed that since the ceasefire held for 17 months they have friends and allies on that body.
Neither the statement before the Docklands explosion, nor the one that followed, left any doubt about who decided, planned or carried out the Dockland's operation.
It was an official Oglaigh na hEireann job, signed by P. O'Neill, sealed and delivered.
And in case anyone thought this was a mere warning shot across the bows of governments and their agents, a second device was planted in the West End of London on Wednesday of this week.
In a sense, because it suggested a campaign rather than an isolated incident, the device defused on Thursday may have sent a more chilling message to the authorities than the one which went off with murderous effect a week earlier.
Needless to say, it's not only the authorities in London who have reason to be worried.
If the loyalist paramilitaries, who describe themselves as a reactive force, decide that the IRA's actions call for retaliation, the Republic is likely to be their target.
And in a sickening harvest of dragon's teeth, the North could hardly hope to escape; though some believe the Provisionals chose their first targets in London in preference to a venue nearer home for fear of local wrath.
Some in Belfast still enjoyed the joke; the commercial and entertainments centres of the world brought to a halt while their children played in peace - for a little longer, at least.
Most were drawn to sympathy with the two young men who were tending their news kiosk when the bomb killed them; most saw the terrible irony of poor people casually murdered for an unknown cause in a distant land.
Here, the question of blame was raised.
Not, by and large, in the Dail, where Government and opposition leaders spoke with humility and dignity of their own feelings of anxiety, responsibility and betrayal.
Mostly it was the commentators and interviewers who indulged in recrimination. Curiously, though, their gripe was not with the Provisionals whose leaders had admitted the bombing but with politicians who obviously felt as let down and uncertain as some of the citizens on the streets.
But then, considering the sustained displays of aggression, inaccuracy and prejudice which characterised many radio and some newspaper commentaries on crime in this jurisdiction of late, criticism of colleagues elsewhere ought to be tempered with caution.
I WAS warming to the subject of crime and fear last week when the bombing began. My complaint was that not many years ago some gruesome murders took place in a country area. The usual cliche's were trotted out, the usual political and clerical sermons preached.
The message was loud, lurid and unmistakable. The place was going to the dogs. Armed gangs had taken to the roads and no one was safe. Those who could afford it should leave. The rest should shutter their windows and bar their doors.
But after the gardai had gone about their business for a week or so, arrests were made and people came to trial. Far from being tales of modern gangsters rampaging through the countryside, when the reports appeared in our local papers they read more like John B. Keane or John M. Synge than Bonnie and Clyde. {CORRECTION} 96021400046