			The Boston Globe
 			30 September 1997 

BELFAST - A well-known Irish republican was walking down 
Alliance Avenue in the Ardoyne the other night, a rifle barely 
concealed under his jacket. 

In the Ardoyne, a neighborhood that is an IRA hotbed, such a 
sight is not unusual. What happened next, however, is. 

A group of men from the Provisional Irish Republican Army 
surrounded the man, whom they knew to belong to a group of 
dissidents. 

A cease-fire is on, he was told. So, his interrogators demanded, 
on whose authority was he carrying a weapon? 

``Continuity IRA,'' he replied. 

His erstwhile comrades ripped the gun from him, tossed it into 
their car, and drove off, leaving him unharmed but unarmed. 

It was a dramatic but hardly isolated incident, as IRA men 
struggle to keep their recalcitrant colleagues under control 
while their political allies in Sinn Fein try to negotiate a 
peaceful end to a conflict that has always been violent. 

The group seemingly trying hardest to derail the talks is one 
that few people had heard of until it exploded a 400-pound bomb 
outside a police station in the Protestant town of Markethill on 
Sept. 16: the Continuity IRA. 

Its existence is the latest manifestation of a split in militant 
republicanism. And both authorities and the Provisional IRA, or 
Provos, fear Markethill was just the beginning. 

The Provos find themselves in a Catch-22. Their inclination, as 
some of them admit, is to execute members who defy orders from 
their ruling Army Council; indeed, their constitution, 
``The Green Book,'' mandates such punishment. 
But to do so now would open them to charges that their 
cease-fire is a sham. 

Some dissidents argue that the IRA has no authority over them 
after they quit, as some have to protest a ``betrayal'' of the 
republican tenet of using violence to force the British to withdraw 
from Northern Ireland. 

The IRA has splintered several times this century, usually after 
a maverick wing had decided the core group had lost its will to 
fight. The first and most significant split came in 1922 over the 
compromise that gave independence to 26 of Ireland's counties but 
made the other six part of the United Kingdom. 

The second came in 1932, when forces led by Eamon de Valera, 
opposing that compromise, put their guns away. In 1970, the 
Provisional IRA split from the Marxist-dominated Official IRA 
and escalated attacks on British troops sent over a year 
earlier to keep loyalists from attacking Catholic neighborhoods. 

Since then, various factions have broken from the Provos, who 
remain the largest and most lethal paramilitary group. Now a new 
organization seems determined to repeat history. The Continuity 
IRA contends it is retaining a ``continuity'' with previous 
incarnations of the IRA, hence the name. 

By all accounts, the Continuity IRA has a long way to go. Last year, 
when it claimed responsibility for its first attack, the statement 
was issued by the Continuity Army Council; many snickered this was 
because the group was so small that all of its members were part of 
its leadership. Even now, security sources estimate its strength at 
only about 100 men. 

At any given time, the Provos never had more than a few hundred 
members on ``active service.'' But it was a secret army of thousands 
of sympathizers who made the group the most resilient insurgency of 
this century. 

So far, nothing suggests the Continuity IRA has more than isolated 
support within the broader republican community. Judging by Sinn 
Fein's most recent vote, that consists of 16 percent of Northern 
Ireland's 1.5 million residents. 

Ken Maginnis, security spokesman for the largest party in Northern 
Ireland, the Ulster Unionists, argued that the Continuity IRA is a 
flag of convenience for the Provos. ``They could not exist unless 
the Provisionals allowed them to,'' Maginnis said, standing near 
the rubble in Markethill. 

Security officials disagreed. They said the Continuity IRA is 
composed of former Provos who have quit. 

Only a few months ago, security officials on both sides of the 
border said they were more worried about the Irish National 
Liberation Army, a small paramilitary group that split from the 
official IRA in 1975, destabilizing the peace process. But as 
the INLA has been prone to internecine feuding, and with the 
new cease-fire leading to growing dissension in the IRA ranks, 
the Continuity IRA has emerged as the more serious threat. 

The other serious bombing carried out by the Continuity IRA was 
in July 1996, when the Killyhevlin Hotel in Enniskillen was blown 
up. 

The Continuity IRA is said to be the military wing of Republican 
Sinn Fein, a group that split with Sinn Fein in 1986 over the 
latter's decision to vie for seats in the Dail, Ireland's parliament. 
But Republican Sinn Fein leader Ruairi O Bradaigh denied his party 
is a front for the Continuity IRA, whose members he praised as 
``true republicans.'' O Bradaigh accused the Provos of 
``collaborating'' with the British. 

O Bradaigh's son, Ruairi Jr., said the only reason gunfire didn't 
erupt when the IRA seized the rifle from one of his comrades was 
that ``he wasn't prepared to shoot them.'' 

No one expects such courtesies to be extended indefinitely. 