Northern Ireland raises threat alert ahead of Easter Monday parades

London: A fragile peace in Northern Ireland is expected to be pushed to near breaking point over the coming days before US President Joe Biden visits to mark the 25th anniversary of a deal that brought to an end three decades of conflict known as the Troubles.

In a public briefing, the Police Service of Northern Ireland said on Friday it had “very strong” intelligence that officers would be targeted in Londonderry – also known as Derry – on Easter Monday following recent signs of particularly heightened tensions.

A loyalist mural on a wall in west Belfast, Northern Ireland.Credit: AP

Easter is always a busy period for police in Northern Ireland, with parades held by republicans to mark the Easter Rising rebellion against British rule in 1916.

Biden, a proud Irish-American Catholic, will be met by British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak when he arrives in Belfast on Tuesday to celebrate the Good Friday Agreement, which was signed on April 10, 1998 and established a power-sharing government involving the region’s unionist and nationalist communities.

The era had largely pitted the historically dominant Protestants – loyal to Britain – against a largely Catholic republican minority between the late 1960s and the late 1990s in sectarian bloodshed, which killed more than 3500 people. Sporadic violence by small groups has kept the threat level mostly at “severe” since the system was introduced in 2010.

Distrust among political factions has also persisted for years after the accord and the province has been without a government since its second-largest party, the Democratic Unionist Party, collapsed the Stormont executive over its opposition to the trade arrangements that resulted from the original Brexit deal between the UK and the EU.

The high-profile visits will happen after UK intelligence agency MI5 last week increased the security threat to “severe”, which has coincided with more than 90 notified unionist parades and other unscheduled events, according to police.

In February, in the most serious incident in years, the dissident republican group known as “the New IRA” shot and seriously injured Detective Chief Inspector John Caldwell at point-blank range.

Assistant Chief Constable Chris Todd played down suggestions that fears over an Easter Monday attack were linked to the arrival of Biden and the world’s media, and said there was “no such intelligence” to suggest the anniversary had motivated plotting by dissident republicans.

The biggest police operation for a decade in Northern Ireland is under way, with more officers put in front-line roles and an increased in 12-hour shifts.

Publicans put up US flags outside the Blue Square bar in Ballina, Ireland.Credit: AP

Biden – who will also visit Dublin, County Louth and County Mayo during his four-day visit – will give a key address at Ulster University’s newly opened Belfast campus in his sole engagement in Northern Ireland.

Announcing the Belfast speech, university vice-chancellor and president Professor Paul Bartholomew said the institution was looking forward to “what will be a very special day in [its] history” and to hosting Biden on his first visit to Northern Ireland since he became president.

The university’s Belfast campus, which opened last autumn, “truly reflects the hope and promise” of the Good Friday Agreement “and our aspirations for a positive, prosperous, and sustainable future for everyone”, Batholomew said.

Sunak reached a deal with the European Union in February to ease post-Brexit trade rules between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, but the political stalemate has yet to be resolved.

People walk past a mural depicting the Battle of the Bogside on a wall in Londonderry, Northern Ireland.Credit: AP

Sunak said the anniversary of the deal marked an “incredible moment” in UK history.

“It was a powerfully rare example of people doing the previously unthinkable to create a better future for Northern Ireland,” he said. “It is that promise of a better future that we offered to everyone in Northern Ireland that I will be thinking of first and foremost over the coming days.”

The UK is seeking to restart talks with the US for a trade deal, people familiar with the matter said, hoping to overcome Biden’s reluctance over agreements that are unpopular with key American voters.

Biden’s affection for Ireland and scepticism about the wisdom of Brexit have hardly been disguised, but he has always accepted the British right to leave the EU.

There were indications the US was prepared to dangle a free trade agreement as an incentive if the UK compromised over the legitimacy of border checks in Northern Ireland to protect the integrity of the single market.

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