Sinn Fein is determined to “get rid of the IRA”, a leading member of the party has declared in remarkably candid comments about its armed wing which waged a campaign of violence against British rule in Northern Ireland. To the likely horror of republican hardliners, who yearn for a return to the “long war”, the party’s national chairman Mitchel McLaughlin spoke of channelling the IRA’s bomb-making “creativity” into politics. “We are saying it is possible to get rid of the IRA,” Mr McLaughlin told the Guardian. “So how do you dismantle or decommission that kind of technical expertise? You really have to change the political circumstances so that people kind of close that chapter and apply that type of commitment and creativity and innovation to a political process or other forms of civilianised existence.” Full Story