On March 24 1936 the IRA shot dead retired Vice-Admiral Henry Somerville RN. In April they killed John Egan in broad daylight in Dungarvan, Co Waterford.
Somerville's murder was not authorised by the army council. Egan's was: they thought he was an informer.
The killings were the last straw for the Fianna Fail government.
De Valera arrested the IRA leaders and banned the IRA.
The 'last straw' because there had been many incidents in the years before 1936, but until the killings Fianna Fail had maintained a curious arms-length relationship with their former comrades in arms. As long as they didn't threaten the stability of the state they had indulged them until 1936.
There were other considerations too by 1936. The IRA had recruited hundreds of new members who were engaging in agitation about unemployment and poverty during the depression.
It was clear to Fianna Fail ministers like former IRA chief of staff Frank Aiken, and former adjutant-general PJ Ruttledge, that the IRA was not going away.
Furthermore, they didn't even know most of the rank and file members any more. Bear in mind that all that was going on 13 years after the order to dump arms and disperse at the end of the civil war and you'll see what remarkable progress has been made since the IRA ceasefire in 1997.
Of course there isn't a direct parallel. For example, the IRA in the 1930s didn't endorse Sinn Féin. Indeed they set up their own short-lived party, Cumann Poblachta na hEireann in 1936.
Nevertheless, the point is this. There will be incidents here involving IRA members and former IRA members for years to come. Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness can't prevent them any more than chief of staff Moss Twomey could in 1936. Furthermore, arresting Moss Twomey and the rest of the leadership in 1936 didn't stop IRA activity then either.
So let's get real. For Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern to say paramilitarism 'must stop' is just an easy soundbite. Worse, it parrots unionist cant.
The fact is that the Adams-McGuinness leadership of the republican movement has done an amazing job in ending the IRA campaign and holding the ceasefire. They have also made huge strides in curbing freelance actions by IRA members including, as Michael McDowell knows full well, standing down the OC of the Dublin brigade who was engaged in organised crime in the docks.
Adams and McGuinness are in a cleft stick though. If they don't manage to stop freelance criminal activity they're attacked by both governments.
If they do try to clamp down on it, what sanctions have they?
If anyone gets knee-capped, or worse, killed, then both governments come down on them like a ton of bricks. If they try to maintain the IRA as a coherent, disciplined organisation to prevent freelancing they are attacked because the IRA 'hasn't gone away'. If they were to let the IRA simply disintegrate they get blamed for every incident involving IRA members over whom they have no control.
Throw into this mess the International Monitoring Commission, a group of busy-bodies with no credibility whatsoever and of questionable legality, set up at the behest of David Trimble in circumstances completely different from the present: a recipe for disaster.
Where will the IMC get its information from? The security forces of course, because the four musketeers are strangers to matters on the ground here.
What could the IMC possibly do? Impose sanctions on Sinn Féin, the only organisation which could have any role in running down IRA activities? Would that make it easier to curb IRA activity, do you think, or harder?
Exclude Sinn Féin from the review? If the IMC had the power to do so, it would be an act of such stupidity that even the NIO wouldn't advise it.
So watch out for a completely fatuous report from the IMC at Easter which will infuriate both republicans and unionists and become a football which unionists will kick around until the European elections.
Meanwhile, rest assured there will be more 'IRA activity' over which no-one has any control, including the IRA leadership. It will continue sporadically for years until republicans can endorse a police service.
Most importantly, it will provide a pretext for unionists to avoid going into partnership with republicans – particularly when the British government pretends, despite full knowledge to the contrary, that local IRA operations are endorsed by Sinn Féin leaders and holds them responsible.
The imminent elections in the Republic mean Bertie Ahern and Michael McDowell naturally take advantage of the complexity of the problem.
A little honesty from the British side wouldn't go amiss, but then there's never been any reason to expect that.
Oh, and happy St Patrick's Day.
