Band of Sisters

By Andrea Gerlin/Belfast

The five Northern Irish sisters who landed at Baltimore/Washington International Airport last Tuesday hardly looked like dignitaries, which is why U.S. agents reacted skeptically when the McCartney women revealed the purpose of their visit to the U.S.: they had come to meet George W. Bush. After briefly questioning the women, authorities let them go in time to make their appointments the next two days in Washington--which included a meeting over coffee and shamrock cookies with Senators Edward Kennedy, Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Chris Dodd and a chat with Bush at the annual St. Patrick's Day reception at the White House. Bush listened as the women vowed to find justice for the death of their brother Robert McCartney, murdered earlier this year in Belfast, Northern Ireland, by a gang the family says included members of the Irish Republican Army (I.R.A.). Robert's fiance Bridgeen Hagans made the trip with the sisters. "Justice will prevail," Bush told them, before repeating one of his favorite post-9/11 lines: "Out of evil can come great good."

Everywhere the women were seen last week--in hotels, taxis, corridors of power--Americans applauded their stand against the I.R.A., whose stature at home and abroad has plummeted in the face of the McCartneys' campaign to have Robert's killers arrested. By breaking the code of silence in Northern Ireland that has long surrounded crimes committed by I.R.A. members, the family has galvanized public opinion against the I.R.A., which for the past 35 years has claimed to be defending the Catholics of Northern Ireland from Protestant gunmen. According to a recent poll, nearly half the supporters of Sinn Fein, the I.R.A.'s political wing, want the group to disband. While the sisters basked in Washington goodwill, Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams was snubbed by congressional allies and disinvited from the St. Patrick's Day party at the White House. Says Congressman Peter King, a longtime Sinn Fein supporter who met with the McCartneys: "They have a forum that no one has ever had before. [If] this case is followed all the way, and the guys who did it go to jail for it, that will have monumental impact on the people of Northern Ireland."

The sisters, whose ages range from 27 to 41, live in a hardscrabble Catholic neighborhood of East Belfast. On Jan. 30, Robert, 33, a forklift driver and a father of two, was at a pub in Belfast when he got into an argument. It spilled into the street, where McCartney was stabbed and beaten to death by a gang that allegedly included I.R.A. members. The perpetrators cleaned the scene, removed closed-circuit television footage and intimidated witnesses, the sisters and police say. Some witnesses have come forward but have denied seeing the actual attack, and no one has been charged. "Seventy-two people could not have all been in the toilets," says Paula McCartney, one of Robert's sisters.

The I.R.A. released a signed statement that it had offered to shoot the men responsible, an offer the McCartney family said it rejected. Since then more victims of I.R.A. thuggery have gone public. Outrage at the I.R.A.'s failure to root out criminal elements has focused scrutiny on Sinn Fein, which is already under pressure to distance itself from the I.R.A. after a $50 million robbery at a Belfast bank in December that the British and Irish governments have blamed on the armed group. Congressional supporters of Sinn Fein say the group must dismantle the I.R.A. if it hopes to revive failing peace negotiations with the other parties to the 1998 Good Friday agreement. Adams told TIME that he supports the "objective of bringing an end to all armed groups," but he would not commit to a specific date. "I don't think pressure works," he says. He condemns McCartney's murder but says the I.R.A. was not responsible for it: "Mr. Robert McCartney was killed by individuals--he was not killed by any armed organization; he was not killed in any operation authorized by any armed organization."

The McCartneys vow to continue fighting. Paula is considering a run for Belfast city council. The women's courage has already won them some important friends. After the sisters told Ted Kennedy that their mother adored President John F. Kennedy, the Senator insisted on speaking to her. Reached by phone, she asked Kennedy, "Are you taking good care of my girls?" The sisters have earned it. --With reporting by Melissa August and John F. Dickerson/Washington

With reporting by Melissa August, John F. Dickerson/Washington