BELFAST

FORMER IRA PERSONNEL from Armagh and adjoining counties are quite sure that Barak Obama’s new presidential library, which has drawn much criticism, is actually an old British Army watch tower which they used to shoot at regularly during the Northern Ireland Troubles.

“That one was in South Armagh near the border with Louth, between Forkhill and Crossmaglen, I’m positive,” insists Sean, who commanded an Active Service Unit during the conflict. “I think there’s even a mark where one of our RPGs hit it in 1991.”

As part of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 – which brought an uneasy peace to the contested six northeastern counties of Ireland – in return for the IRA putting its weapons beyond use and promising to stay at home and stop shooting at them, the British Army dismantled its entire security apparatus along the Irish border and further afield, disbanded most of its local regimental units, and withdrew to several locations around Belfast and the Ards Peninsula, where it remains, slowly diminishing in strength. There are about 1,000 -1,500 British troops left, if that, largely reservists, mostly training. Much of what the British military does in Northern Ireland now is focused on accommodation and other properties. They have left the battlefield behind to focus their real estate interests, it appears. The watch towers and other fortresses were disposed of, in whole or in part, in the usual post-conflict manner. Several were allegedly eventually bought by installation artists, others by agents of sundry oligarchs, tyrants and the like, for various internal security purposes around the globe.

Could one of them have become a presidential library?