Blow to peace hopes

Press, 28 July 1976, Page 8

Blow to peace hopes

QZPA-Reuter Belfas’ British Government relations with militants among the Roman Catholic minority in Northern Ireland appeared to worsen yesterday as Maire Drumm took over as acting head of the Provisional Sinn Fein. The organisation is the legal political arm of the underground Irish Republican Army’s Provisional wing, which is waging guerrilla warfare against British rule and against militants of the Protestant majority loyal to Britain. Mrs Drumm, who is in her 50s, said that Sinn Fein’s periodic talks with British officials would probably cease. She took over from Rory’ O’Brady, the movement’s president, who is in custody and under police interrogation in Belfast after the assassination in the Irish Republic last week of the British Ambassador (Mr Christopher Ewart-Biggs’). A British Government order on Monday banned O’Brady from future entry into Northern Ireland or any other part of Britain. Mrs Drumm is a fiery anti-British campaigner who was chosen “Gaelic woman of the year’’ by Irish-American organisations in the United States.