It seems we will eventually arrive at a place in these North Eastern six Counties, where we will have to face down people within our own communities who seek to continue a war that no longer exists. The targeting of a young female part-time PSNI officer and her child this week, with what has been described as a “turbo charged incendiary device” is just the latest in a line of threats created by the ‘New IRA’. From the bomb placed under a PSNI officer’s car in East Belfast to the murder of Lyra McKee, the New IRA has shown itself to be nothing but a thorn in the side of peace which gives validity to the likes of the UDA and UVF labelling themselves as ‘protectors’ of the very communities they destroy with drugs.
We have paid a heavy price in our country, both North and South, to arrive at a fragile and hard-won peace. A peace which the majority respect and embrace. The Troubles in this tiny country of ours claimed the lives of 3,532 people between 1969 and 2001. That’s a hell of a lot of lives for such a small part of a small island. Yet with a tentative peace in place and a united Ireland closer than ever, the New IRA and others feel the need to continue with killing to bring about that which can be achieved in peace. I am assuming a united Ireland is indeed their end goal, so why not achieve it by peaceful means rather than by violence? We have already witnessed the grief and misery caused by the inadvertent death of a young, promising journalist who wrote some great pieces such as ‘Letter to my 14 year old self’ and ‘Mosaic’. Most will know Lyra was struck in the head by a stray bullet fired at PSNI officers, when a New IRA gunman opened fire at the PSNI on Fanad Drive in Derry. The PSNI transported Lyra to hospital in an armoured land-rover where she sadly succumbed to her wounds.
If the widespread disgust and anger over the death of Lyra wasn’t enough to halt NIRA operations, then they most certainly do not represent the will of the people and are fighting a war imagined in their own minds…a war which ended 23 years ago. There are still faint glimmers of civilisation remaining in this barbaric slaughterhouse known as humanity. Glimmers such as a people willing to fight for peace, even against those seen as a friend. In the end peace must prevail, if not for us, then for our future generations. The situation is not helped by the fact Derry is one of the most impoverished places in not just the North, but in the entirety of these islands of the UK and Ireland.
Much of the influence of these so-called ‘Republican’ groups derives from the fact they offer a focus, a point of interest which many within the area lack. A huge part of the problem in Derry is unemployment. While the Derry City Deal provides twice as much funding as that which Belfast received, much of that money must be directed toward training, job creation, building communities and diverting the eyes of our youth away from violence which will destroy their lives. We fought that fight so they didn’t have to. Giving kids something to work toward and concentrate on while giving them somewhere to go at night would go a long way to taking the power away from these out-dated violent Republican groups. What kids in these areas need is direction and purpose of a positive hue. Not a lesson in bomb making and guns.
With a united Ireland almost a certainty in the near future, are the New IRA a very real detriment to that unity? The majority would suggest they are. Their militant actions swing the spotlight firmly onto a form of republicanism which is no longer required and which the Good Friday Agreement rendered unnecessary. Their attacks are sporadic and undisciplined with revulsion and disgust leveled against them from both sides of the divide in the North in the aftermath of their attacks. The people of the North of Ireland spoke loud and clear in 1998 – WE WANT PEACE, and while Loyalist paramilitaries continue to arm themselves and partake in criminality, that does not mean Republicans must do the same. The New IRA is an extremely small minority within republicanism which deems itself the protectors of the community. A community which comes under attack time and again because of the actions of the NIRA. It becomes a vicious circle of events. The NIRA carries out an action, the PSNI raids homes, the NIRA blames the PSNI for raiding homes then the NIRA starts a riot. In the end, whether we agree on this or not, the NIRA are the instigators. If the NIRA weren’t a ‘thing’ then the PSNI wouldn’t be raiding homes.
The NIRA is the result of a failure in responsibility to provide for a people who were scorned by both the British and the Irish governments at a time when they needed focused support. Derry was all but forgotten when ‘peace money’ was being distributed. While millions upon millions of pounds are directed toward Loyalism and Unionism and Belfast, little has been pushed toward the heartlands of the NIRA in Derry. Many of those becoming embroiled in this new violent Republicanism are youths disenfranchised by a country which has all but forgotten about them until recently, 23 years after the Good Friday Agreement was signed. Funding must be pushed into places like the Creggan and the Bogside areas of Derry and areas in North and West Belfast where the NIRA has its power bases. Martina Anderson has been pivotal, especially while an MEP, to securing funding for these areas which were all but forgotten while the focus was on our first city, Belfast.
The NIRA needs to disappear…literally. I have no doubt that the Special Reconnaissance Unit, deployed to the North to identify rioting ringleaders, has been redirected to gather intelligence on the NIRA after the attempted murder of a part time PSNI officer. However, what would be more productive and a more powerful statement, is if the people of Derry and Belfast, both Unionist and Nationalist stood together in protest, to denounce violence from both sides because whether we want to admit it or not…one side is as bad as the other at this stage. Armed factions on both sides need to leave the stage and allow the people of this country to find their own peaceful way to an inevitable united Ireland. It is my opinion that the NIRA are a detriment to that end goal. Those 3,532 lives were lost due to British oppression and armed action and reaction in the face of that oppression. What we need now is peace. Peace to find our place in a new refreshed Ireland without terrorists taking us back to days when death was on our doorstep 24 hours per day.
Never again! Never ever again!
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