T

he last time the IRA carried out a major attack in Britain, I felt the effects quite literally. One Shabbos morning in 1996, the terrorist group detonated a massive truck bomb in Manchester’s city center, shattering glass for half a mile around in a blast that I felt miles away.

But the killing of a journalist at a riot in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, on April 18 has focused attention on the continued existence of armed groups and their increasing activity against the background of a stalled Brexit. Two decades after the Good Friday peace agreement ended, decades of conflict between pro-British loyalists and Irish nationalist republicans in the province, the New IRA splinter group is increasingly active. The incident comes after a car bomb attack in the city in January, as well as a parcel bomb campaign in March that targeted transit hubs in England.

Part of the responsibility for the increased tension is the Brexit process, which has run aground largely over the potential for a hard border to be re-imposed between British Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. A member of the group was quoted in a Sunday Times article this week confirming that Brexit has renewed attention on the Irish border. “Brexit has forced the IRA to refocus and has underlined how Ireland remains partitioned. It would be remiss of us not to capitalize on the opportunity,” a member of the New IRA said. So, does all this mean that the IRA is making a comeback?

According to a report by Stratfor, the answer is no — at least not yet. The New IRA operates in a very different environment than its far more lethal forerunner, the Provisional IRA. The group has little popular support, hampering its ability to recruit and fundraise. It also lacks the support of foreign governments; the Provisional IRA was supported by the Libyan regime and the East German Stasi. Ultimately, the report concludes, “the New IRA is far more like a criminal gang that uses a veil of ideology to justify its continuing criminality than a true revolutionary movement.”

But as the last few months have shown, the group has the ability to spread low-level terror. And the threat of a real IRA comeback is yet another twist in the Brexit saga.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 758)