Terrorism is back in Northern Ireland

Even the dissidents have now spawned their own heavily armed dissidents. The bomb defused by army experts at Forkhill this week was the work not of the Real IRA but one of its own breakaway groups, Oglaigh na hEireann. The bomb was bigger than the Real IRA bomb in Omagh which killed unborn twins, six men, 12 women and 11 children. It brings into sharp relief the problems now facing the security services.

Another illustration of these problems came last month. In the village of Meigh in south Armagh, near the border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, a police car encountered seven heavily armed terrorists — they even had a rocket launcher with them — operating a vehicle checkpoint and handing out leaflets telling locals not to co-operate with the security services. The police, who were lightly armed — and, it was later rumoured, undertrained in firearm use — beat a hasty retreat. As one website put it, ‘PSNI patrol flees from Real IRA roadblock’. To make matters worse, within a few days of the incident, a leaked internal Police Service of Northern Ireland report appeared which was severely critical of the functioning of the organisation.

Both events have combined to contribute to a certain jumpiness in the public mood. The authorities respond somewhat wearily, pointing out that no one ever believed that the Belfast Agreement meant the absolute end of Republican terrorism in Ireland. The prompt action of the police in Meigh prevented civilian casualties, they say. And even in the old days, RUC patrols did on occasion back away from confrontation with armed republicans. Naturally, many of the pensioned-off members of the RUC take a different view.

As for the leaked report, the official version is that it was merely the outcome of tough, shrewd self-criticism, in anticipation of the arrival of a new chief constable of the PSNI to replace Sir Hugh Orde.