IRA man should not be extradited from U.S. in Nairac murder

He was one of nine men said to be responsible for the death of British undercover soldier Robert Nairac in South Armagh 32 years ago.

Robert Nairac was educated at Oxford and joined the British undercover services after college. He attempted to infiltrate the IRA but was instead rumbled by them. He met his death in a lonely country wood just over the border from South Armagh. His body has never been found.

The Nairac murder has never gone away.

Perhaps because he was such a star in the British Army, perhaps because he had the good looks and Oxford background his death resonated far more than the hundreds of other Tommies who also died in the conflict.

Pat Maguire was allegedly there on the night that Nairac was killed. Soon after he fled to America and made a safe home for himself in New Jersey and lived quietly ever after, married and had four children, held down a good job.

Then the past came knocking yesterday in the shape of a British Sun newspaper reporter who had tracked him down.

So for Patrick Maguire the Troubles have never gone away -- but they should. Since the peace process a general amnesty has essentially been in place on all sides in Northern Ireland . It should apply to Patrick Maguire too. Enough lives have been ruined by that conflict. It is time we all moved on. It is a waste of everyone's time to try and drag up the past. An IRA man once said to me that we needed a solution the "dead could live with' We have that now and it is no good bringing them back to life.