St. Patrick's Day Lead Up: Irish Eyes Are Weeping

Britain is in uproar as violence has resurfaced in Northern Ireland after a 12-year hiatus. A group calling itself the "Real IRA" assassinated two members of the armed forces on Sunday night and a local police constable on Monday night. There is great concern that the "bad old days" of random violence are on their way back to a country that had to live with that situation and its deadly and tragic consequences for too many decades. Nearly five pages of the Times were devoted to the topic on Monday--coverage welcome only because it provided a break from the daily diet of dismal financial news. Unraised so far is how, or if, this turn of events will affect another uproar in the making: the decision to grant an honorary knighthood to Sen. Ted Kennedy. The bumbling prime minister says the the award will honor the senator's commitment to peace in Northern Ireland but the opposition retorts that the Kennedys have strong historical ties to backing IRA terrorism, and the knighthood is an insult to Britain. Having been announced, the knighthood will go forward, but it does raise an interesting question about how one man's honorific can be horrific to someone in a different position.