Last week’s revelations that the British government knew the identities of the people behind the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings and failed to bring them to justice comes as no surprise. The Northern Ireland Office memo, disclosed last week, confirmed not only that the British government knew the identities of the killers within four months of the attack but that the then secretary of state, Merlyn Rees, actually told Irish representatives at a meeting between the two governments that they had evidence that men they had recently interned were responsible for the bombings.