Mitchell Reiss Quotes

I don’t think one can speak of defeating the IRA, of eliminating them completely, but it is the design of the security forces to reduce their level of violence to something like an acceptable level.

As a former member of the IRA, I accept all the responsibilities that are due to me. But in terms of the individual circumstances, I don't comment on that.

The IRA has abandoned its armed struggle in pursuit of its goals by political means. This must be fully acknowledged. Continued challenge does nothing but obstruct and inhibit the peace process.

The British don't runaway from terrorism. We have had 30-odd years of terrorism in our own country from the Irish Republican Army. We're used to it.

It's an extraordinary thing, this tiny little province of Northern Ireland, where carnage happened. And I was part of it. I grew up in it.

I felt that the IRA, in the context of Irish history, and Sinn Fein were a legitimate force that had to be recognized, and you wouldn't have peace without them.

The IRA have nowhere to go. I've stripped away all their excuses, one by one.

They want to derail peace because they want to plunge Northern Ireland back into armed conflict.

Northern Ireland still suffers from its past, and it will take generations to escape sectarianism and for violence to end totally. Nonetheless, it is in a different place now than during the Troubles, and it will not go back to the old days.

When things did go wrong for the IRA, when civilians were killed, I tried to put it in context, not defend it.

At that time, the army leadership said the implementation of this agreement would allow everyone, including the IRA, to take its political objectives forward by peaceful and democratic means.

The gun is not out of Irish politics.

The Irish Republican Army has kept every commitment made by its leadership.

I think I'm one of the people who brought about peace in Ireland.

The big missing part of the jig-saw is to get the assembly back up and running here in Northern Ireland, to get shared government back in business, that is my objective, and we await the IRA statement to see if this will trigger a new dawn.

Well I think it has always been a mistake to reduce the peace process in Ireland to a decommissioning process.

But that citizen's perception was also at one with the truth in recognizing that the very brutality of the means by which the IRA were pursuing change was destructive of the trust upon which new possibilities would have to be based.

The British government says that for Sinn Fein to be involved in talks the guns must be left at the door.

In the past I have defended the right of the IRA to engage in armed struggle. I did so because there was no alternative for those who would not bend the knee, or turn a blind eye to oppression, or for those who wanted a national republic.

The Republican movement have not behaved properly over the years. They have not themselves implemented the Agreement. If they had implemented the Agreement then they would have disarmed completely in May 2000, that is what they undertook to do, that is what they failed to do.

Spies and informers, beware. Tried, convicted and executed by the Irish Republican Army

Tony Blair has made a good contribution to the cause of peace in Ireland. He has made a great effort to understand it. He has great empathy with the need to resolve the conflict.

Middle Eastern wars rarely end with outright victory and permanent stability, so the word 'settlement' may promise too much. At best, for many years, it may simply mean stable ceasefire lines, reduced bloodshed, fewer refugees, and less terrorism.

You could count on the fingers of one hand the number of people in the north who said to me, 'When did you leave the IRA?'

I lost a lot of friends at the hands of the British Army. The person who actually introduced me to my wife, Colm Keenan, was murdered by the British Army. He was a member of the IRA, but he was unarmed.