Sunday Independent Stupid Statement of the Week

Garibaldy is having trouble with the internet (which by the by is almost the definition of some of our interactions here, isn’t it?) so to get the ball rolling, how about this from Jim Cusack which is almost hallucinatory in its strangeness:

A former senior garda, involved almost all his life in fighting the IRA, outlined a few years ago what he thought the Provisionals’ plans for assuming absolute power in Ireland would entail.

And:

He pointed to IRA documents that had become public over a decade ago referring to what it termed “TUAS” – “tactical use of unarmed strategy”. This, he believed, was what would be the “likely” way forward. They (the IRA), he said, will bring down the power-sharing government in the North, precipitating a crisis and, in parallel, undermining and replacing the existing party political structure in the ’26 Counties’.
With power in the South and a crisis on its doorstep, this garda – who was held in very high esteem by colleagues – thought the Provos would then institute some form of ’emergency’ government in the Republic, doing away with the need for elections and democracy and the establishment of a single-party state.

Just like that – eh? Apparently so. And the contemporary relevance?

Up until last week, this view of the Provos’ seditious plot to overthrow the legitimate government of the Republic would have been firmly placed by a large constituency of politicians, senior civil servants and media people as the fantasy of some kind of old-fashioned loony.

Only up until last week?

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