It was a week more sombre than any of us can remember. August lived up to its reputation as an unpredictable month, but this time with a cruelty and horror none of us could have expected. As the first news came in last Saturday and then as the sheer scale and enormity of the carnage began to seep through, politicians, like all other normal people, were doing the normal ordinary things people do on Saturday afternoon in the middle of the summer - some were shopping, some playing golf, others holding clinics, many on holidays but before long all were sharing and experiencing the sense of indescribable numbness, anger and desolation that has engulfed the entire country this past week.
Now, after a week of harrowing funerals and scenes of anguish that would break the hardest heart, we are left with the task of ensuring the primacy of politics, the continuation of the Belfast Agreement and that first essential, that first duty of any civilised state, securing the safety of its people.
Drapier is in no mood to criticise any of his Government colleagues or indeed the security forces for the handling of events this past week. The reality is, as events have shown elsewhere, a splinter group like the so-called `Real IRA' has a mad logic of its own. There is no restraint on its members, no rules, no logic and invariably a high level of recklessness and incompetence. The mindset of these groups and their behaviour is, as John Hume pointed out, fascist - fascist in the certainty of their own unchallengeable right to impose their will on others, even, or maybe especially, when the others constitute an overwhelming majority, fascist in their contempt for democracy, their contempt for the rights of others and their determination to impose their will through force and violence. That is the essence of classical fascism and if history tells us one thing it is that between fascism and democracy there can be no compromise - you can't compromise with people who themselves reject the very notion of compromise.
The first essential of any state is to have the capacity to defend itself and to be prepared where necessary to use that capacity. W.T. Cosgrave saw this reality in the Civil War - unless the State could defend itself, democracy and the rule of law could not survive. Hard things were done but the State and democracy survived. Eamon de Valera faced a similar challenge in 1939 when the IRA threatened the survival of the State's neutrality. De Valera acted as harshly as Cosgrave, and with success. De Valera and John A. Costello were prepared to operate the same harsh legislation in the 1950s against the IRA, which sought to subvert the State.
Bertie Ahern now faces the same challenge, but he does so with advantages none of his predecessors enjoyed. He has domestic political support on a massive and unprecedented scale. He has a friendly and encouraging media. Public opinion is emphatically behind him. He has security information and resources of the most sophisticated and elaborate kind; he has the support of virtually all politicians in Northern Ireland, even, or maybe especially, those like Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, who took risks in signing the Belfast Agreement and desperately want it to survive. And he has a good working relationship with the British government.
But he also has to deal with a public impatient for action, impatient for results. Drapier's first reaction was, like that of Michael McDowell, to favour internment. But to have been effective, internment needed speed and surprise. Last Sunday morning was the time to act but, even if it had been implemented, it would only have been a temporary device. The people want and demand justice. They want the perpetrators brought to book, made accountable and made accept the consequences of what they have done. Internment merely takes them out of circulation, puts them in a self-reinforcing situation and leaves them free to resume where they left off when the inevitable and usually early releases take place.
There is, and will be from time to time, a conflict between the rule of law and the safety of the State and its people. This is not the first Government to face this dilemma but as ever the safety of the people must be the priority. As things stand, Drapier believes the Government has got it about as right as is possible in the package of measures announced on Wednesday night. Drapier would have preferred a speedier recall of the Dail and Seanad to consider and enact the legislation, but maybe the 10-day interval will give us breathing space to examine the proposals in detail and, with a certain degree of calm, to see if, as John Bruton feels, they need to be further strengthened or if changes need to be made. That is the only benefit Drapier can see in the Dail and Seanad not being recalled earlier, even if for no other purpose than to allow a show of solidarity from the national parliament to the victims and their families.
While on the question of rule of law, Drapier has to express concern about some of the events in Dundalk these past few days. Drapier understands and knows that many of the decent people of the town have had to suppress their revulsion and have been made to feel intimidated over the past years as they were obliged to watch the struttings and posturings of people they knew to be involved in nefarious activities. Drapier recalls that in those days only Brendan McGahon had the courage to speak out, to say hard and specific things and to endure a great deal of obloquy, not just from the people concerned but from some of the "sneaking regarders" in the media. And, as ever, this week Brendan McGahon struck the right, if unpopular, note when, while shedding no tears for the people concerned, he attacked mob law and emphasised the need for action through the courts. Some may see Brendan McGahon as a maverick, but he has never lacked courage.
Drapier also this week wants to pay tribute to the President, Mary McAleese. She was right to go to Omagh last Sunday, and throughout the week she has been an ever-present and visible symbol of the unequivocal grief and concern of the people of the Republic. Drapier thinks it important to make this point because he is very aware of the sustained campaign against Mary McAleese, especially in some of the nastier gossip columns these past few months. She may not yet have a "feel" for the South and she makes the odd unnecessary mistake like not going to the RDS, but in Drapier's view she is a good President, with good humane instincts, warm and generous. Drapier for one was proud of the way she handled her job this past awful week. It's time to lay off and give her a chance.
Drapier can say no more of a week that will live forever in shame and infamy, when even the most eloquent words are utterly inadequate to express what we feel.