BRITISH government sources last night appeared content that Dublin was feeling the greater pressure, as the two governments assessed the political fallout from the Manchester bomb attack.
As the Taoiseach and the Tanaiste took to the British airwaves, the Prime Minister, Mr Major, added nothing to his immediate condemnation of Saturday's "dreadful act" and his demand for "an unequivocal IRA ceasefire now".
But Mr Michael Howard, the Home Secretary, raised the stakes for the republican movement, saying they would find it more difficult now to persuade people that any new ceasefire was intended to be permanent. And the Foreign Secretary, Mr Malcolm Rifkind, came close to accepting that "the peace process" was at an end.
Speaking on the BBC's On the Record programme, Mr Howard said "No one is going to be taken in. You can't have a situation in which there's a bomb in Manchester on Saturday and the announcement of a ceasefire on Monday, and people allowed back into talks on Tuesday. The real world isn't like that."
Mr Howard said "Any offer of a ceasefire that was made now would have to he scrutinised with the most intense care for all the circumstances surrounding it. I don't think it's at all easy to see how we can have a ceasefire that can he regarded as genuine and permanent.
"The message is that it's going to be much more difficult to satisfy everyone concerned, all the parties concerned, that a ceasefire is genuine and permanent."
And the Tory mood was underlined by Mr Andrew Hunter, chairman of the Conservative backbench committee on Northern Ireland, who said the Manchester bomb meant Sinn Fein had to remain excluded from the talks process.
Mr Hunter stopped short of endorsing unionist calls for the introduction of internment, while keeping open the option. But he said. "I cannot now foresee the circumstances in which any repeated ceasefire would carry conviction or credibility sufficient for people to have confidence to sit down and talk with Sinn Fein."
Mr Rilkind reflected the same theme, saying a restoration of the IRA ceasefire in the next 48 hours would not carry "any credibility".
The Foreign Secretary said. "You don't carry out an indiscriminate bombing in a major city, injure 200 people and then claim it is a prelude to a commitment to peace it just doesn't carry the kind of conviction that is necessary. And it would he a contemptible way to behave." Mr Rilkind said the peace process "may very well be" at an end.
It was, he said, a very sad day which demonstrated how right the British and Irish governments had been to insist on the resumption of a ceasefire as the price of Sinn Fein's entry to talks. "We have had their response. . It is clear it is fairly unequivocal and I'm afraid we must draw the conclusions.
Speaking on Saturday, Mr Major said. This callous act of terrorism while the queen was reviewing the colour of the Irish Guards is an insult to both nations. Sinn Fein have been clamouring to attend the Northern Ireland peace talks. If they are really serious about wanting peace, they must condemn this act and demand an unequivocal IRA ceasefire now.
The Labour leader, Mr Tony Blair, said. "If the IRA think they can shift the resolve of any government with this action they are cruelly mistaken."
Cardinal Basil Hume said. "I am deeply saddened by this appalling act of violence perpetrated in Manchester which injured so many innocent people. Whoever was responsible for such a wicked act must surely realise... they are embarking on a fruitless course."