Unseemly Cheer

A party praises terrorism

The 600 delegates who gathered in Dublin's 18th century Mansion House for the annual conference of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, were exuberant. Reason: the I.R.A.'s success in planting the Brighton hotel bomb that last month almost killed British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and left four people dead and 34 injured. "Far from being a blow against democracy," thundered Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams from a platform flanked by huge posters of the devastated hotel, "it was a blow for democracy." Adams termed the bombing "an inevitable result of the British presence" in Northern Ireland, which he called "unwanted, illegal and immoral." Although the I.R.A. is banned in both Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, Sinn Fein is not.

Adams also criticized the government of Irish Prime Minister Garret FitzGerald as a "small-potato republic mimicking its British imperialist masters." Thatcher and FitzGerald, who have been cooperating closely in the fight against I.R.A. terrorism, are scheduled to meet later this month to discuss the continuing problems that plague their mutual border.