The rationale was a decision by the Supreme Court that the IRA activities amounted to a “political offence”, as described in the 1965 Extradition Act. This state of affairs infuriated British authorities, but what is not as widely known is that the Irish definition of a “political offence” was hotly contested by some members of the Supreme Court. The court’s approach to the issue is detailed in a book by the editor of The Irish Times, Ruadhán Mac Cormaic, The Supreme Court. The ultimate responsibility for closing the “political offence” loophole for IRA activities lay with the political system. He came up with a new definition of a political offence as being involved “in what reasonable, civilised people would regard as political activity”.

Source: The Irish Times March 06, 2026 15:02 UTC