Guns Across the Border

The bitter Protestant-Catholic rioting in Northern Ireland last August aroused predictable sympathy in the largely Catholic Irish Republic to the south. Last week there were charges that extremists in Eire have been providing far more palpable support. In a whirl of charges and countercharges, Prime Minister Jack Lynch fired two of his Cabinet ministers. A third resigned in sympathy. At week's end Lynch reshuffled his entire Cabinet. Behind the firings was the story, not yet fully substantiated, of an arms plot intended to strengthen the outnumbered Catholics of the North.

Though Lynch appeared convinced that the two ousted ministers were linked directly to the rumored plot, both men --former Agriculture Minister Neil Blaney and ex-Finance Minister Charles Haughey--flatly denied any involvement. In any event, disclosure of the gunrunning story heightened Protestant fears of a Catholic plot to take over Ulster and strengthened the hand of such right-wingers as the Rev. Ian Paisley. To appalled moderates on both sides of the Irish border, this seemed to promise renewed religious strife in the North this summer.

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