Quiet Anniversary

It was the quietest Easter in years, so it was. Indeed, nothing happened at all at all -nothing only a few fire bombs in a Belfast theater and four Royal Ulster constables shot, one for keeps, God rest his soul.

The usually busy Belfast courts had no aftermaths before them last week except two colleens of 16 and 18 who had killed the constable. Nevertheless, the Irish Republican Army were still as busy as nailers in other ways, so Scotland Yard, believing

I.R.A. Chief Sean Russell dead, went haring after his supposed successor. They thought she was the widow of Cathal Brugha, I.R.A. leader killed during the Trouble.

Though 450 I.R.A.s are in concentration camps and 153 serving prison sentences, the Saxons and the pro-Saxon Gaels had the devil's own job cutting the "pipeline" connecting Eire with Northern Ireland. Fortnight ago in Dublin they jailed (for seven years) piccolo-playing Anthony Deery, whose piccolo, the peelers found, was strangely mute, being stuffed with code-scribbled cigaret papers.

South of the border the world's most belligerently neutral censorship produced an atmosphere "like an aquarium in which the water is never changed." When German Parachutist Hans Marchner skipped Mountjoy jail, although rewards for capture were posted, newspapers were not allowed to publish picture or description.

Their precious neutrality did not save the Irish from shortages such as belligerents were suffering. They lacked bread, coal and gasoline; they burned peat and prepared jaunting-cars for the near future when automobiles will dry up. But the tea shortage was considered the greatest enormity the English had inflicted on them since Cromwell sacked Drogheda.

Prime Minister Eamon de Valera's protest, fortnight ago, against an English court decision that Irishmen in Britain can be forced into the British Army, had no more effect than his protest against the presence of U.S. troops on Irish soil.

North of the border, relations between the Irish and the predominantly Midwestern U.S. troops were somewhat strained. Illogical to the Irish mind was the troops' complaining of the lack of supplies while they absorb all the surpluses in sight, especially beer. Stopped by a small-town constable for passing a red light, a U.S. trooper rudely exclaimed: "I've never seen traffic lights in a cemetery before." Another, asked his opinion of Irish girls, glumly replied: "At home, we bury our dead." The Irish have a tendency to resent such-remarks. When a U.S. technician in a bar grumbled audibly about "having to come over to look after this little island," an incensed Irishman flashed back: "Faith, you don't seem very good at looking after your own little islands."

The Irish were still Irish.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.