The people incarcerated are political prisoners. Republicans are obliged to defend the political status of those imprisoned as a result of political activity. Those who bombed Omagh are no different from those who bombed Enniskillen. Each can honestly claim to have been motivated by Danny Morrison's publicly expressed illogic that if one Irish person feels subjectively oppressed by British rule that person has the right to bear arms against such rule. Being political prisoners is one thing. Having strategic common sense underpin and justify the actions which led to such imprisonment is quite another. What is the moral, political or strategic advantage in being a legitimate political prisoner, if actions which expose the innocent to risks such as those posed by the Omagh or Enniskillen bombs are what leads to imprisonment? In a McCartheyite atmosphere where screams of 'there is no alternative' to the Good Friday Agreement fill the air, the intellectual space to think about different options is heavily shut down. When the Agreement is seen to either collapse or is so heavily plagued by a virus of irreformability the 'no alternative' argument not surprisingly leads to republicans feeling that they should go back to doing what 'they do best'.

Increasingly it is being said that politics have not worked. If so that must also include military politics. Perhaps it is certain strategies that do not work rather than politics per se. Republicanism cannot be so strategically bankrupt that it can accept the notion that there can be no possible alternative to republicans having to administer British rule. Nor can it be so heavily blinkered that it can imagine armed struggle having any role to play in the creation of an alternative. Are things so bad that the choice is Omagh or Stormont?

For those who think armed struggle is the way forward their very actions make the Stormont route all the more plausible. Whatever the mistakes of the Sinn Fein leadership they are not being counted in body bags on an Omagh street. And until such times as Omagh type threats are non-existent the Stormont option will for many remain an attractive option, if only by default. An Ireland free from British rule is for any republican a cherished goal. But the path to freedom cannot be paved with the dead of Omagh or Enniskillen. While Ireland holds these graves Ireland free shall never be at peace.