You can take the man of out of Armagh...

...but can you take the man from Armagh out of the Armani suit, as Princeton poet Paul Muldoon would say? And as Paul Muldoon wouldn't have added, if you do take the man out of Armagh, should you put him into the West Bank teaching Palestinians how to make bombs? Most certainly not. But it has happened nonetheless, according to various media reports this weekend; here's the BBC one.

The recurring claim in all the reports is that the person is a Real IRA member. Having them embarrassed by this would be a nice diversion for the Irish government from the fiasco of a trial of the group's alleged leader, in which the star witness David Rupert (in addition to comments we made in our post 2 weeks ago) has also claimed: that he was going to start an offshore Florida gambling operation with Generals Noriega and Pinochet, that he contemplated a career in pro-wrestling, that rumours about him and smuggling and drugs just reflected a persona that he had developed, and then there was some weird business about him and a possible statutory rape case in Alabama in the 1970s. A truly charming character -- with $1.5m of UK and US payoffs to his credit. But anyway, let's see what the Israelis make of their latest dubious visitor entering on a UK passport.

Update: The counterclaims begin. It's a case of mistaken identity and/or he's a peace activist, not a bombmaker. And doesn't everyone know that it's risky to rely on British intelligence as a source for something -- uranium purchases in Niger, Irishmen in Israel:

It was earlier reported that a British security services tip-off had led to the arrest of the man.
The Israeli government is not responding to questions about the case, but it is understood British intelligence had informed them of the man's presence. [Irish Times Breaking News]