That the bombing in the centre of Manchester's shopping district took no lives is perhaps the only scrap of comfort in a black day's work by the Provisionals. There is no credit to the bombers in that. Rather does it go to the men and women of the Manchester police rescue and medical services who worked heroically, first to evacuate the area as the bomb ticked to detonation and then in the aftermath, among scenes of horrific devastation.
This abhorrent act has mutilated, injured and traumatised hundreds of innocent people. It has also annihilated any lingering hope that perhaps the Provisionals had put in place a de facto ceasefire. Taken together with the belated admission from the IRA that its members murdered Det Garda Jerry McCabe at Adare, this latest outrage confirms that the prospects for Sinn Fein's early participation in negotiations are remote indeed. Their paramilitary comrades have gone so far beyond the pale of civilised behaviour that even a renewed declaration of a cease fire would now be of dubious value.
What this means for the leadership of Mr Gerry Adams is yet to be determined. A fortnight ago, buoyed up by a strong electoral performance, Mr Adams's desire to be at the negotiating table appeared likely to turn the tide in favour of a new ceasefire. But the murder at Adare and Saturday's atrocity in Manchester must cast the most grave doubts over the effectiveness of his authority within the so called republican "family". Perhaps the Sinn Fein/IRA axis failed to appreciate that its electoral success represented a high water mark for its political influence. But it can hardly doubt the depths of revulsion which have been excited by the violence, the lies and the duplicity since then.
It may also be that in years to come, the historians will identify the days of June 1996 as the time when Sinn Fein/IRA finally created between themselves and the many others who are endeavouring to shape a new settlement, a divide which would remain unbridgeable for many years. There is only a certain distance that society can go to accommodate a small minority which believes it can resort to violence to have its way. And there is only a certain extent to which people will suspend their critical faculties. Do the leaders of the IRA expect us to believe that the gunmen of Adare would have been disowned had they succeeded in diverting a quarter of a million pounds into their coffers as in previous robberies and if the incident had not ended in death and injury for two gardai?
There are glimmers of optimism, notwithstanding the unwillingness of Sinn Fein/IRA at this time to put an end to the savagery of bullet and bomb. The talks process, for all its procedural chaos, has begun. Those who are participating know that if they fail, if negotiations collapse, the initiative reverts to the paramilitaries. The goal of a new, negotiated settlement, endorsed by the great majority of the people who live on this island, remains an attainable one. The Tanaiste, Mr Spring, has said firmly that the process of negotiation must continue and will not be blown off course. And it was surely heartening to hear Mr David Trimble affirm his conviction, in the wake of the Manchester attack, that the underlying impetus of events is towards peace and not towards another 25 years of violence.
The slim hope also exists that the Manchester outrage may represent not a renewal of such attacks but perhaps a last fling for the bombers before a renewal of the ceasefire. It has been common knowledge that IRA bombing units have been in place in Britain for months past, waiting for a suitable moment and opportunity to strike. Analysts for both governments are unwilling to rule out the possibility that we may be at the end of a period of violence rather than the beginning. It is a time to hope for the best but to anticipate the worst.