More than a decade ago a senior Fine Gael sage observed to me that he had been trying for years to persuade Garret FitzGerald that the Republic of Ireland's policy on Northern Ireland should not be dictated by John Hume. These days, as the leaked memorandum about the police commission graphically demonstrates, it is dictated by Gerry Adams.
When Dermot Gallagher, the head of the Anglo-Irish division in the Department of Foreign Affairs, received "a very emotional and angry telephone call" from Rita O'Hare, Sinn Fein's Dublin-based director of publicity, he did not tell her that the Government had accepted the commission's make-up, so she could therefore get lost. He rang Mo Mowlam. And Mo Mowlam, true to form, rang Rita O'Hare. The Secretary of State saw nothing odd about discussing a commission to investigate the RUC with a woman who cannot set foot in the United Kingdom because she is wanted for questioning about an attempted murder of a member of the security forces.
Jeffrey Donaldson, the Ulster Unionist MP to whom the document was leaked, disagreed. He thought it a disgrace. And so do I. But I think it is just as much a disgrace that the Government allows itself to be intimidated by a gang of republican bullies. And it's not just the Government. Last week the GAA leadership caved in to republican pressure and gave up the fight to abolish its ban on members of the British army and the RUC. Generosity yielded to bitterness. And if anyone doubts that it was Sinn Fein that orchestrated that opposition, may I refer them to the coverage of the issue in recent issues of An Phoblacht/Republican News. Archbishop Dermot Clifford got it right when he said the Northern delegates had come under pressure from "political elements", which was "bordering on intimidation".
What frightens me most about all of this is that since John Hume brought republicans in from the cold where they belong, their single-mindedness, ruthlessness and energy - not forgetting their private army - are steadily winning them enormous influence in the Republic despite their insignificant electoral base. We've let this happen because of a combination of cowardice, wishful thinking and arrogance.
There are very few people around who have the moral courage of Archbishop Clifford. The preferred method of dealing with frightening republicans is to give them what they want. We think that through charm, good example and lots of sweeties we can make republicans be like us. Instead, they are working diligently to make us like them.
There is a widespread assumption in the Republic that we understand Northern republicans. Are they not like those of our granddaddies who fought for freedom for a while and then settled for democracy? No, they aren't. Our granddaddies played soldiers for only a few years. They did not conduct a tribal war for almost three decades. Gerry Adams is not Sean Lemass. The republican leadership are hard, dedicated operators whose vision of the future would frighten us out of our wits if we took the trouble to examine it. Sectarian, sentimental and stuck in a time warp, they are pushing for an isolationist, monocultural, stridently nationalist United Ireland run vaguely along the lines of Cuba. They hate the EU because it curbs the power of governments over their people.
Judge them by their conduct in the government of their fiefdoms. In Derry, where Martin McGuinness rules, some Protestants believe they are second-class citizens. In the Bogside, as in West Belfast and other republican ghettos, discipline is maintained by thugs. Republican leaders have always been happy to sacrifice their own people for the cause, but they have done much more than kill, maim and endanger them. They have sought to control their minds and souls. Their propaganda brilliantly and relentlessly dins in the message that Northern Irish Catholics are uniquely oppressed. As Dr Liam Kennedy pointed out in a brilliant essay (Out of Ireland: Ireland, that `Most Distressful Country'), this MOPE - Most Oppressed People Ever - view of history is based on insularity and ignorance and does not stand up to any critical analysis.
But of course dictators rule by keeping their people insular and ignorant and the republican leadership is ingenious and bold in the way it does this. Nowadays, there is an excellent chance that a child born into a Northern Irish republican family will go to a school staffed by republicans, will have no fellow pupils from outside the republican community, will play Gaelic sports exclusively, will participate in elaborate festivals and parades celebrating the MOPE world view, will attend cultural events extolling the superiority of Irish over all other cultures and will be taught that Protestants hate Catholics, that the RUC is manned by violent, sectarian bigots and that Catholics are killed by "loyalist death squads" directed by British intelligence, RUC officers and senior unionist politicians.
He will know that a policeman who fires a plastic bullet at rioters is a blackguard, but that an IRA man who beats up an adolescent with a nail-studded baseball bat is a hero. He will also be taught that the British are still imperialists and the Republic of Ireland is corrupt, weak and unjust.
The British government helplessly allows much of this propaganda to be subsidised by its educational and cultural largesse. Like the Irish Government, it will not admit what is happening in the republican ghettos and how the cancer is spreading. Yet, if the Belfast Agreement means anything, it means that the governments of two civilised countries must use their clout to try to improve the lot of everyone in Northern Ireland. And where the Irish Government is concerned, that should mean fighting bigoted republicans for the soul of Irish nationalism. They could start by following Archbishop Clifford's lead and condemning the mean-spiritedness of the GAA decision. And they could show moral leadership by making every effort to persuade nationalists that - in the spirit of peace and reconciliation - they should invite their Orange neighbours to walk down the disputed parade routes. There is no development that could have such a benign effect on the frightened Protestants of Northern Ireland and on the way they vote in the Assembly elections.
Mary Holland is on leave