This Younger Generation Lacks Respect

Authorities on both sides of the border remain convinced that the Irish Republican Army pulled off the world's biggest bank heist in 2004 as a way to provide retirement funds to its old soldiers. The volunteers were being made to stand down, with the peace accord, but you can't put that old horse out to pasture without financial backing. Not after all the sacrifice, and the murders and bombmaking and petrol laundering and such.

Slab Murphy, the boss of Armagh

Precious little of the haul has ever been found by gardai or the Police Service of Northern Ireland. They believe that plenty of folks in Armagh know exactly where that money is, but they aren't talking. Either they are loyal to the IRA, or they're terrified of retribution at the hands of IRA-mob boss Slab Murphy and his compatriots.

It's that sort of respect that protects the IRA in the region, which has largely devolved into a criminal enterprise that could be used as source material for a Sopranos-style drama series with a heavy Irish brogue.

The problem is, the younger generation has grown up with the IRA as a gang of thugs rather than freedom fighters, and they don't have the necessary level of respect. According to reports in the Independent, that respect has been lost because the IRA stopped killing people. Or whacking, to use the proper parlance.

So off go the kids to form their own gangs to launder diesel fuel and sell it on illegally, or run the IRA out of the drugs trade. And sometimes, one of them takes advantage of an opportunity and goes on a spending spree funded unwittingly by the IRA.

Someone in Armagh, who must have had some inside information, liberated 50,000 British pounds from its hiding place on land belonging to a top IRA operative. What was that IRA man going to do about it, if the lad took the cash and spent it? It's not as if Mr. IRA would go to the police and file a report, or press charges. Sure the old turkeys are largely toothless these days.

Said young man had a grand time over the Christmas holidays, buying drinks for friends and women for himself. He blew through the cash and now it's gone. And now the IRA wants it back.

Associates of Slab Murphy are said to have paid a call on the family home, doing a bit of smashing to get their point across.

The man who had fun at IRA expense is now in fear of his life.

He's discovered that just because the IRA isn't officially murdering those who cross them doesn't mean that someone in the organization might decide that perhaps it's time to change that policy. Especially if said member of the organization is out fifty thousand pounds of retirement savings.

Anyone in Armagh interested in a crowdsourcing initiative to replace the money and save a fool's life? Before the likes of Slab Murphy and others of his ilk take it into their heads to instill the meaning of respect in the younger generation who are much in need of learning if the IRA is maintain control.

It's what Tony Soprano would do, right?