Two news vendors, Inan Bashir (29) and John Jeffries (31), caught in the huge explosion which marked the end of the ceasefire, were the first victims of the renewed IRA campaign. In the confusion of the emergency operation to clear Canary Wharf, they were left standing close to the van bomb and were caught in the blast. Both died instantly. The explosion also injured dozens of people and caused more than £100 million worth of damage to commercial and residential property in the Docklands area.
A number of attacks on the security forces in the North failed to result in any serious injuries until October 1996 when a car bomb exploded inside Thiepval Barracks, the British army's headquarters at Lisburn, Co Antrim. The explosion killed Warrant Officer James Bradwell (43) and badly injured 15 military and civilian staff.
The next victim was Lance Bombardier Stephen Restorick, the 23-year-old soldier shot dead by an IRA sniper as he stood at a checkpoint outside Bessbrook, south Armagh, in February.
An IRA unit apparently attempting to rob a post office cash delivery in Adare, Co Limerick, shot and killed Garda Jerry McCabe on June 7th last year and injured his colleague, Garda Ben O'Sullivan. The officers were accompanying the cash delivery and were sitting in their squad car when an IRA man fired on them from behind with an AK47 rifle.
The IRA called a halt to attacks in Northern Ireland during the period prior to the Westminster and Dail elections. However, within three days of the election to the Dail of Sinn Fein's Mr Caoimhghin O Caolain, its campaign was restarted. The north Armagh IRA shot dead Constable Roland Graham (34) and Reserve Constable David Johnston (30). Both men were married with young families.
There were several other concerted attempts to kill security force members. A heavy mortar was fired into Quebec barracks, the British army base in Osnabruck, Germany, in June 1996. The mortar landed inside the barracks but failed to explode.
The IRA also carried out a second major bombing in England - Manchester in June 1996 - again causing at least £100 million worth of damage and causing some 40 injuries, none serious.
Ironically, the IRA killed more people during the 18 months of its ceasefire than it has since. In the period of the ceasefire, the IRA, using the cover-name Direct Action Against Drugs (DAAD), shot dead eight Belfast men it accused of drug dealing. In December 1994, the IRA in Newry also shot dead a postal worker, Mr Frank Kerr, during the robbery of the town's sorting office.
In the past 17 months, other republican and loyalist killings took place in Northern Ireland.
The splinter group, the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), shot dead RUC Constable Darren Bradshaw in a Belfast city centre pub last May 9th. The INLA also engaged in a bloody internal feud which began with the assassination of its leader, Gino Gallagher, in west Belfast in January 1996. Within a few months six people were killed in the INLA feud, including a nine-year-old girl, Barbara McAlorum.
Loyalist killings took place even though the main organisations, the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and Ulster Defence Association (UDA), were officially on ceasefire. Loyalists were responsible for killing seven of their own members in internal disputes or by accident, as in the case of the UDA member, Brian Morton, who blew himself up with a bomb two weeks ago.
Loyalists were responsible for six sectarian killings, most of those being the work of breakaway militants, some associated with the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF), the group formed by the Portadown figure, Billy Wright.
Loyalists also beat to death Constable Greg Taylor at a public house in Ballymoney, Co Antrim, in June. And they were responsible too for the murder of the young Catholic woman, Ms Bernadette Martin, whose funeral took place yesterday, who was shot dead in the home of her Protestant boyfriend.