The New IRA by its recent bomb attacks in Lurgan and Dunmurry on the outskirts of Belfast has demonstrated that it still poses a significant threat and that its actions can impede the efforts to create a normalised society in Northern Ireland.
The proxy bomb attack in Lurgan in late March was unsuccessful but the car bomb outside Dunmurry PSNI station did explode. But for kind providence, as evident from web-cam footage, a police officer approaching the vehicle could have been killed or badly injured when the blast occurred.
The New IRA in a statement to the Irish News admitting responsibility said the Dunmurry incident was designed to “kill police coming out of the station”.
The New IRA is an anachronistic organisation but equally there is no denying that it can make life dangerous, onerous and difficult for a lot of people. To use that Troubles phrase, the New IRA only “has to be lucky once” to cause death, injury and misery.
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Accordingly, these recent actions inevitably lead to a heightened sense of security, to more police patrols, to more house searches, to police officers needing to be extra vigilant for their families and themselves. The bomb incidents also may create a chill factor in dissuading potential recruits, particularly Catholics, from joining the PSNI. All grist to the mill of the New IRA.
The organisation said such actions will “continue until the British give a declaration to withdraw” from Northern Ireland.
This is a weakened organisation. Many of its members are in prison and others are facing serious charges. Fundamentalist republicans, some of them implicated in drugs and other forms of criminality, can cause disruption but they must not be permitted to seriously undermine political and societal progress.
The Provisional IRA failed to achieve a united Ireland by violence and so will the New IRA. Whatever the constitutional future holds, it only can be resolved by peaceful, political and democratic means
