Discretion being the better part of valour

Over on Slugger, Brian Walker is urging everyone to give Sinn Féin the space it needs at the moment. 

Irish republicanism has always sought to conflate legitimate grievances - inequality, discrimination, harrasment - with the national cause.

Their great successes - 1916, the 1918 election, the subsequent collapse of British rule in most of Ireland with Black & Tan mayhem as a backdrop, through to the NICRA-era in the late 1960s leading to Bloody Sunday and internment, and then the Hunger Strikes of the 1980s - riling the Brit dog - have all led to entrenchment in a longer and longer death march. 

The lack of even the legitmate grievances of the past should put paid to the current outrages. I think Brian is right.

Update: David Aaronovitch has quite a different view.