The dying embers of peace

The Northern Ireland peace process was close to complete disintegration last night as positions hardened following the bomb explosion at Enniskillen early yesterday.

With the momentum of events building towards more conflict and bloodshed since the flashpoint at Drumcree last week, Sir Patrick Mayhew, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, is to make a statement in the Commons this afternoon.

The Irish Government requested an emergency meeting this week between the British and Irish prime ministers but, with John Major still irritated by John Bruton's outspoken criticism of the about-turn at Drumcree, the request met with a cool response in Downing Street.

The Killyhevlin hotel bomb, the first in Northern Ireland since the 1994 ceasefire, was condemned on almost all sides yesterday, amid fears of a violent backlash by loyalist para-military groups.

But hopes of peace still hung by a slender thread last night as it emerged that the bomb was probably the work of Republican Sinn Fein, a splinter group, rather than the IRA itself.

Sinn Fein's president, Gerry Adams, said he was greatly relieved no one had been seriously hurt in the attack, which injured 17 people, and said he was "immensely suspicious" as to who carried it out "at a point when the British Government and Unionist leaders are in the dock".

He said that, for them, "this comes at a very fortuitous time".

Mr Adams said that when the "real authors" of the bombing were identified "we will see there were dirty tricks involved".

As nationalist feelings ran high, Roman Catholic outrage over Drumcree was expressed in strong language by Cardinal Cahal Daly, Primate of All Ireland. "For 25 years I have condemned violence from all quarters, but I now feel betrayed - betrayed by the British Government," he told GMTV's Sunday programme .

Asked who was responsible for the breakdown of the peace process, he said: "Sadly, regrettably, I have to say that I lay the blame fairly and squarely on the British Government." But he appealed for calm, saying: "We must not allow this to happen; we must pull back from that awful brink."

Despite condemnations of the bomb, the recriminations over Drumcree also put severe strain on the all-party consensus at Westminster.

Marjorie Mowlam, Labour's spokeswoman, described the decision of the mainly Roman Catholic SDLP to pull out of the peace forum as "understandable".

She repeated her demand for an independent commission to look at parades and marches, and said it was "really serious" that the "rule of law has been brushed aside" by the decision to let the Orange march at Drumcree to go ahead.

Lord Holme, for the Liberal Democrats, accused British ministers of being implicated in the "disastrous" reversal of policy at Drumcree. He asked: "How could they not have planned ahead for the marches after Drumcree last year?"

Relations between London and Dublin have hit a new low, with Mr Major said to be still "incandescent" at Mr Bruton's criticisms of him over Drumcree and Irish Foreign Minister Dick Spring admitting that "very wide gaps" had appeared between the two governments which would be "extremely difficult" to bridge.

A Downing Street spokeswoman had no comment on the Irish request for a summit, and said talks would be "at the level of Sir Patrick and Mr Spring" in the course of all-party talks starting tomorrow.

Yesterday Mr Spring maintained the blunt criticism of the about-turn over Drumcree, saying British decisions regarding one community had signally failed to judge the effect on the nationalist side, and had simply "revisited mistakes of the past".

He complained that effective security co-operation and consultation achieved between the two Governments in recent years had not been forthcoming in the past week.

This provoked a furious reaction from the arch-Unionist wing of the Conservative Party. David Wilshire, the Tory MP for Spelthorne, told the Independent : "The time has come to tear up the Anglo-Irish Agreement." He said the Irish Government was not "entitled to be consulted on policing decisions in a part of the United Kingdom". And he added that the British Government had to "square up to terrorists rather than appease them".

Meanwhile, Mr Adams, speaking on Irish radio, said the British Government had to be "straightened out" after Drumcree. "They have to have manners put on them" to enable meaningful all-party talks to become a possibility, he said.

On the other side of the sectarian trenches, Unionist politicians warned that the loyalist paramilitary ceasefire was close to breaking. David Ervine of the Progressive Unionist Party - aligned with the loyalist paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force - said the bomb had been the culmination of an absolutely tragic week.

He said he would continue to appeal to the loyalist paramilitary groups not to react. But he believed the bombing was "likely to get a response", adding: "Frankly my honeyed words of the benefits and merits of peace are wearing somewhat thin."