The funeral of the young journalist Lyra McKee in Belfast. Her killing has brought renewed focus on the latest incarnation of the Irish Republican Army. Photo / AP
It began with a heavy-handed police raid on a suspected weapons cache, two minutes from Stevie Mallett's youth club. Some residents responded with stones, gasoline bombs and, ultimately, bullets fired at the police and their vehicles. Then a young journalist lay dead.
For some in Northern Ireland, the riot here two weeks ago was an unexpected echo of a conflict that formally ended two decades ago. But for Mallett, it was to some extent predictable.
The youth worker knows some of the young men involved personally — and has witnessed firsthand the deprivation that he believes partly led them to the latest incarnation of the Irish Republican Army.
One of them had once hoped to work as a builder in England, but could not afford the $150 for a certificate that would let him work on a building site, Mallett said.
"You're telling them all the time things will get better, but they say: When? When is it gonna come?" said Mallett, walking up the street where the journalist, Lyra McKee, was shot while standing behind police lines.
"We're still living in poverty," Mallett added.
The killing of McKee has brought renewed focus on the organisations and foot soldiers that still seek, 21 years after a 1998 peace deal, to reunite the north and south of Ireland through armed conflict.
After a guerrilla war that lasted nearly three decades, the peace deal, known as the Good Friday agreement, persuaded the region's main militant groups, most notably the Provisional Irish Republican Army, to lay down their arms.
As part of the deal, a new form of regional government was created to share power between those who want the region to remain part of the United Kingdom, known as unionists and loyalists, and those who seek a united Ireland, known as nationalists and republicans. Huge investment was promised to rejuvenate an economy shredded by years of conflict.
Border checks with the Republic of Ireland were removed, allowing citizens of both territories to live and work in either, and provision was made for a referendum on Irish reunification, should opinion polls indicate that the concept would command a majority.
The death of McKee, here in Northern Ireland's second city, has underscored the fragility of these arrangements.
Official statistics from the Police Service of Northern Ireland show that while the number of paramilitary-related incidents has ebbed slightly in the past decade, they still occur on a regular basis: There were 68 shooting and bombing incidents recorded in 2017-18, only 32 less than in 2008-09.
Londonderry's 17th-century walls are still daubed with the words: "IRA Here to Stay."
Though most armed groups abided by the peace deal, some republican factions felt it did not do enough to achieve a united Ireland. They bristled in particular at the decision by the Provisional IRA to give up its weapons entirely.
Splinter groups broke away from the organisation, eventually forming a new alliance in 2012, often called the New IRA. This is the organisation that has been linked to a string of recent incidents, including a car bomb left outside a courthouse in January and the shooting of McKee.
The group believes it is the true standard-bearer of the republican cause, rather than well-known figures like Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, who decided to pursue reunification through electoral politics.
"They don't want to be seen as something new, or a departure," said Marisa McGlinchey, the author of a recent book about dissident republicans, Unfinished Business. "They are locating themselves as the latest phase in a long campaign for Irish unity."
A prominent figure in the republican movement, who asked not to be identified by name, said a lack of resources and manpower meant their campaign currently had more symbolic than practical impact.
"The army exists to carry on the flame of resistance," he said. "The IRA know they can't emulate the Provisionals. But they know they have to keep the flame lit."
In mainstream Northern Irish discourse, however, they are viewed as little more than a criminal gang that harnesses the lofty aims of Irish republicanism to cloak more thuggish goals.
The killing of McKee was even condemned by other dissident republican groups, who defend the wider concept of an armed struggle but said the New IRA's timing and methods had undermined the republican cause. The police said that 140 residents had come forward with information about the murder, an unusually high number.
Mallett, who can see the site of the shooting from the door of his youth club office, says the actions of the New IRA can be partly explained, though not justified, by the economic precarity in which many still find themselves in Londonderry, known simply as Derry by the city's nationalist majority.
"Things were changing," Mallett said. "But they've stopped changing."
Londonderry's economy is growing more slowly than that of any other city in the United Kingdom, according to an analysis of 47 cities last year by PricewaterhouseCoopers, an auditing company.
Its unemployment rate is in the bottom 3 per cent of all districts in the country, according to the latest labour statistics.
More than a third of children here live in poverty, while in Creggan, where the rioting occurred, the figure rises to nearly half.
All this has been compounded by nearly a decade of budget cutting by the Conservative-led government in London, which has slashed funding for social services, youth programs and community policing across every part of the country.
It has had particularly dire consequences in Londonderry, where long-standing social inequality helped foment the Northern Irish conflict in the late 1960s, and where many feel they have never experienced the economic dividend promised by those who promoted the Good Friday agreement.
When Mallett's youth center was finally given funding for a new building, for example, it was enough for less than a third of the space he applied for.
In this context, some are not surprised that a few disenfranchised teenagers — who have grown up in a neighbourhood still festooned with the flags, murals and slogans of armed republican groups — might want to join their ranks themselves.
"People ask me: Why would you join — why would people join any army?" said John Donnelly, a mediator and youth worker who in an earlier life was jailed for his role in the armed conflict.
"They've been told of the promises of a new dawn" that they feel has never broken, Donnelly said. "The only benefit you can really see is that the British Army is not on the streets."
Austerity also thwarted efforts to change the relationship between nationalist communities and the Northern Irish police force.
In Creggan, budget cuts prevented a community policing initiative that had established a better understanding between residents and the police.
"There are less police officers there doing this kind of policing," said Mark Hamilton, an assistant chief constable in the Police Service of Northern Ireland, who oversees neighbourhood policing.
"And where you're dealing with the types of issues that we're dealing with in parts of Northern Ireland," Hamilton added, "the impact of austerity can have a disproportionate impact."
The collapse of the regional power-sharing agreement, which has left Northern Ireland without a local government for more than two years, has also contributed to a sense of a peace process gone wrong.
So, too, has the prospect of Brexit, which could force the reintroduction of border checks if Britain leaves the European Union without agreeing on the particulars of its trading relationship with the bloc.
In the nationalist parts of Londonderry, where there are more roads leading to Ireland than to the rest of Northern Ireland, the return of a hard border would have "such a psychological effect," said Mallett. "It scars people."
The New IRA itself denies its members are primarily motivated by economic precarity, Brexit or wrinkles in the peace process. It claims they are instead mainly driven by the goal of Irish reunification.
"It's got nothing to do with money," said the member of the movement. "We could have all the money in the world, but until there's a full British withdrawal, we will continue to fight."
But any return to a hard border, he said, though irrelevant to his own convictions, could be a useful recruiting tool.
"A hard border would be brilliant," he said. "It brings back the idea that this country is partitioned."
Written by: Patrick Kingsley
Photographs by: Andrew Testa
© 2019 THE NEW YORK TIMES
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