Acceptable Violence?

In the midst of a quiet evening at his country home near the Northern Ireland town of Strabane, Senator John Barnhill, 65, a prosperous Protestant businessman, answered a knock at the door. He was shot dead by three members of the Irish Republican Army, who had crossed over the unguarded border from Eire a few hundred yards away. The gunmen then ordered Barnhill's wife out, placed a bomb near the body and blew up the house. Thus began another normal week in Ulster.

Surprisingly, responsibility for Barnhill's assassination was accepted by the Marxist but moderate "Official" wing of the I.R.A., which has strongly opposed violence and criticized the guerrilla tactics of the army's more militant Provisionals. But the Provisionals, as it happens, were also busy. Two days after Barnhill's death, seven raids were made on the homes of wealthy Protestants--most of them magistrates or city councilors--in Belfast's Malone Road district, hitherto untouched by terrorism. Two houses were wrecked by bombs, the husband of Edith Taggart, Ulster's only woman Senator, was struck with a pistol butt, the wife of a city councilor was slightly wounded by gunshot, and a reserve army sergeant was shot critically in the chest and neck. No deaths resulted because the raids were either bungled, thwarted by the resistance of the householders, or ill-planned.

Familiar Incidents. The week featured other familiar incidents of violence on both sides. A 22-year-old British soldier was killed in Belfast by a sniper; Catholic gunmen even sprayed bullets at the ambulance that carried him to a hospital. I.R.A. guerrillas blasted a Belfast printing factory with a gelignite bomb and planted fire bombs in two shops and a customs office, in incidents similar to one the week before that killed four people, including a 17-month-old boy when a furniture store was blown up. At Coalisland, a gloomy Catholic town 40 miles west of Belfast, members of the Protestant-dominated Ulster Defense Regiment mistook a 16-year-old boy, Martin McShane, for an I.R.A. gunman and shot him to death. In response, several hundred Coalisland youths rioted; four government vehicles were burned or wrecked.

Faced with the escalation of violence, Britain's Home Secretary Reginald Maudling hinted that London might he pondering a more flexible Ulster policy. After conferring with Protestant leaders, Maudling allowed at a press conference the possibility that the I.R.A. gunmen would "not be defeated, not completely eliminated, but have their violence reduced to an acceptable level." Any lasting solution, he went on. ''cannot be achieved by military action alone." The statement appeared to mean that Maudling is now convinced--as he did not seem to be just a few weeks ago--that substantial political changes, well beyond the reforms already offered by Northern Ireland Prime Minister Brian Faulkner's government, will have to be made to placate the bitterly alienated Catholic half of Ulster's population.

War Threat. Maudling's cautious remarks were immediately denounced by Ulster's militant Protestants. "There is no level of violence," roared the Rev. Ian Paisley at Stormont, "that will be acceptable to the people of Northern Ireland." I.R.A. violence is also becoming increasingly unacceptable to the Irish Republic, where many of the gunmen take refuge. No Irish politician can appear to be responding to British pressure, and none can afford to overlook southern public sympathy for the I.R.A. and the plight of Catholics in the North. Nonetheless, the Republic's Prime Minister John Lynch in recent weeks has ordered increased border patrols by the Irish army. The I.R.A. militants who use the South as a sanctuary seem to be apprehensive that he will take further action against them. A Provisionals' spokesman warned last week: "If Lynch orders internment, it will be resisted in all ways, including military." Angrily responding to this threat. Lynch hinted that he might recall Irish troops from U.N. peacekeeping duty in Cyprus to crush any outbreak of I.R.A. terrorism in the Republic. "As far as the government is concerned." he told Parliament, "the I.R.A. will not be allowed to usurp the functions of this government or this Parliament. They have no mandate from anybody." He added: "Every bomb exploded, every bullet shot, not only by the I.R.A. men but by the British --and, especially, every innocent person who loses his life--puts the day of reconciliation farther and farther away."

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