Have ‘the Troubles’ returned?
6 nights of violence in N. Ireland seen as a worrisome trend
LONDON — A bus hijacked, pelted with stones, then set on fire. Masked youths rioting, hurling missiles and homemade bombs. A press photographer attacked on the streets.
For almost a week, scenes of violence familiar from Northern Ireland’s brutal past have returned in a stark warning of the fragility of a peace process crafted more than two decades ago that’s under growing political and sectarian strain.
Amid a contested fallout from Brexit, politicians have pointed to different causes for an explosion of anger from parts of the Protestant, so-called Unionist or Loyalist, community that’s determined to keep its link to the rest of the United Kingdom.
But analysts agree that six consecutive nights of violence, during which 55 police officers have been injured and 10 arrests made, mark a worrisome trend.
“I think it’s very serious, it’s easy to see how things can escalate and hard to see how things can calm down,” said Katy Hayward, a professor of political sociology at Queen’s University, Belfast.
In the aftermath of Brexit, she added, Unionists “feel betrayed by the British government and feel that Northern Ireland’s place in the union is very much under pressure as a result, so that sense of insecurity definitely raises the stakes.”
Jonathan Caine, a Conservative Party member of the House of Lords and former adviser to six Northern Ireland secretaries, said the violence reflected dangerous tensions.
“By historic standards it is not out of control, but it could be, and the reason is not just the reaction to Brexit,” he said. “There are deep-seated anxieties within the Unionist community and a perception that they have been left behind, that everything is geared not to them but to the Republicans,” he added, referring to parts of the Catholic population who favor a united Ireland.
With rioting by some as young as 13, the violence has shocked politicians, prompting condemnation from Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain and Northern Ireland’s power-sharing executive, which Thursday called for calm to be restored.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the Biden administration was concerned by the violence, “and we join the British, Irish and Northern Irish leaders in their calls for calm.”
Northern Ireland has seen sporadic outbreaks of street violence since the 1998 Good Friday peace accord ended “the Troubles” — decades of Catholic-Protestant bloodshed over the status of the region in which more than 3,000 people died.
But Police Service of Northern Ireland Assistant Chief Constable Jonathan Roberts said Wednesday’s mayhem “was at a scale we have not seen in recent years.” He said 55 police officers had been injured over several nights of disorder, and it was lucky no one had been seriously hurt or killed.
There was a further outbreak of violence Thursday night in the nationalist Springfield Road area of Belfast, where youths threw stones at police, who responded with a water cannon blast.
Though tensions have risen in recent weeks, an incident months ago was the catalyst for the most recent violence, which saw rioters burning tires and garbage in the streets.
In June 2020, despite COVID-19 rules banning large gatherings, police allowed a funeral to go ahead after the death of Bobby Storey, who was considered the head of intelligence of the Irish Republican Army, an armed group dedicated to a united Ireland that waged a violent campaign against British forces during the Troubles.
Among around 2,000 people who attended his funeral were senior members of Sinn Fein, a party that mainly represents Catholic voters. The party was once seen as the political wing of the IRA but now plays a prominent part of the democratic power-sharing system in Belfast.
A decision last week not to prosecute mourners for breaking COVID regulations infuriated Unionists, sparking protests and prompting Northern Ireland’s first minister, Arlene Foster, to demand the resignation of Police Chief Simon Byrne, over his handling of the funeral.