The Strike Ends

And a step toward unity

Two quite different developments took place last week that could ease both historic and recent tensions in Northern Ireland. The more dramatic came from Maze Prison, where at week's end Irish Republican militants announced that they were giving up their seven-month campaign of fasting that has left ten dead since it began last March. In Dublin, Prime Minister Garret FitzGerald launched a bold initiative to change the constitution of the Irish Republic in ways that would make unification of the divided island more conceivable.

The statement from the prisoners was inevitable. Earlier, word spread that families of the final six fasting inmates would not permit their men to die. They were following the lead of four other families who intervenedwith Maze authorities to save prisoners lives. Three other strikers decided to abandon the fast on their own. Richard McAuley, a leader of the Sinn Fein, the political arm of the I.R.A., has admitted that under such circumstances the hunger strike was placing "little or no pressure" on the British to yield to the prisoners' demands for political status, though the government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had shown no indication of doing so in any case.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister FitzGerald was trying to make unification of the Republic and Ulster more attractive to Northern Ireland's Protestants, who have protested that they would be swallowed up in a predominantly Catholic state. FitzGerald proposed changing the Republic's constitution and laws to remove Catholic bias. He cited articles that claim jurisdiction over the whole island and ban divorce. FitzGerald is likely to have trouble getting his plan passed by the Dail, since he leads a coalition that has only a two-vote margin. If approved, the constitutional amendments would have to be ratified by national referendum.

The Catholic Church made no response to FitzGerald's proposals last week, but they were hailed by leading Protestant clergymen in the Republic. In Ulster, Protestant Firebrand Ian Paisley railed that FitzGerald's plan would "in no way weaken our resolve never to come under Dublin rule." Catholic leaders gave the initiative a guarded welcome. Said Sean Farren, chairman of the predominantly Catholic Social Democratic and Labor Party: "Many changes, both in attitudes and in law, are needed if a meaningful agreement is to be achieved between the people of Ireland."

Prime Minister FitzGerald was trying to make one of the first and most fundamental changes--and betting his political career on it.

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