Gunsmoke and Mirrors: How Sinn Fein Dressed Up Defeat as Victory

While the ‘Northern Ireland model’ is increasingly cited as applicable to other
conflicts, perhaps especially in the Middle East, the truth about the ending of the
Northern Ireland Troubles is misunderstood, not least because a myth has been
established by Sinn Fein – ‘the polite fiction,’ as Henry McDonald puts it, ‘that the
final outcome had been some sort of honourable draw.’