TOW #13

TOW #13

Aaron Pieroni

            The Irish Republican Army (IRA) was originally a small revolutionary military that fought against the British between 1913 and 1922 in the Irish War of Independence.  This war ended with the creation of the Anglo-Irish treaty resulting in the freedom of Ireland… most of it any way.  This treaty left the British government in control of Northern Ireland.  For many IRA members and regular Irish citizens this was an acceptable trade off but for some this was unacceptable.  To this very day acts of terror against the British and Northern Ireland continue to be conducted by diehard IRA extremists, which have resulted in the deaths of many Irish and Anglos alike.

            Recently, Friday night, a bomb was partially detonated on St Anne’s Square in Northern Ireland’s Belfast Cathedral Quarter, no one was injured.  The Republican dissident group Óglaigh na hÉireann later claimed responsibility for planting the bomb in the city centre with in a rucksack.  Henry McDonald, Writer for the Guardian, uses this piece to show how the people of Northern Ireland accept the peace process and will do what they can to stop these acts of terror.   McDonald does this by using previous anecdotal news stories from earlier this year to show that the people of Northern Ireland won’t take these acts of terror without pushing back.  This is directed towards the Óglaigh na hÉireann themselves and their IRA sympathizers. 

            Henry McDonald is effective in furthering his purpose to his audience because he is able to show how the woman forced to carry a bomb on her bus risked her life to save many in Belfast by taking the bus out of the city centre and into a more remote rural area outside of town.  This shows the commitment of one brave Belfast citizen to the protection of her fellow citizens.