The idea that the IRA should become a commemorative group glorifying its history of violence is grotesque, writes Dennis Kennedy
To commemorate, the dictionary says, is to honour the memory of someone or some event. The Taoiseach thinks it would be a good thing if the Provisional IRA were to continue in being as a commemorative body, no longer shooting people or blowing them to bits, but just honouring the memory of doing little else for the past 30 years.
So he would be happy to see the Provos (Retd) laying a wreath annually at the fish shop on the Shankill Road to honour the memory of Thomas Begley and his heroic sacrifice when he blew himself up along with seven shoppers and the shop owner and his daughter?
He would generously apply the same understanding to other paramilitary groups, so presumably he would have no objection to the UVF (Old Comrades) marching along Dublin's streets to commemorate their famous action of 1974 when they took the war to the enemy? All perhaps, with financial aid from both governments and EU Peace funding.
No doubt Mr Ahern had no such commemorations in mind when he gave his press conference after meeting Mr Blair in London last week.
But what else does he think the Provisional IRA and loyalist terror gangs would commemorate? They would, of course, honour their own dead, but in so doing they would be glorifying actions in which men engaged in terrorism, bent on murder, had been killed.
The whole grotesque scenario indicates the ambiguity towards terrorist violence which has characterised the approach of both London and Dublin to the Northern problem over the past decade, and which has brought the Belfast Agreement to the point of collapse.
Mr Ahern also repeated that he had never asked the IRA to disband, and he could not see why anyone could ask any organisation to disband. It was enough for it to give up criminality and paramilitarism. Describing a terrorist gang, as an "organisation" like any other is itself further evidence of the degree to which Mr Ahern is ready to appease terrorism.
But the idea that a proscribed group, defying the authority of the Government, cannot be asked to disband, but instead is invited to continue in some other form, beggars belief.
The IRA exists because it does not recognise the State and sees itself as the legitimate army of the Republic. It is deeply subversive. If, as in the Taoiseach's dream, it gave some undertaking that it was giving up using arms and robbing banks, and generously treated us all to another "act of decommissioning" what would that mean?
Would it mean that it was admitting that it was not, after all, the army of the Republic, that it had never been, and that therefore none of its actions has been justified?
If so, why should it remain in existence in any form, and what would it have to commemorate?
Or would this just be another bit of nudge nudge, wink wink, with the government of a democratic state buying off a terrorist threat, and hoping that the theology of the republican movement and the cult of violence would eventually wither away in a combination of parades and political jobbery?
Another scenario is more likely. The IRA has a membership with a command structure along military lines. It recruits and it trains its members. They are all motivated by a distorted ideology based on their perceived right, as the army of the Republic, to use armed force to achieve an all-island Republic.
If, in a short period, they agree that the IRA will, henceforth be a "commemorative" organisation, will they all settle down and help cement a settlement along the lines of the agreement, with partition still in place, and Northern Ireland a devolved province of the UK?
Or will they, instead, remain part of an organisation with a dedicated membership and a command structure, keeping alive the distorted ideology of Republicanism through acts of commemoration, and ensuring, inevitably, the nurturing of the physical force tradition?
Dennis Kennedy is a historian and writer on European and Irish affairs