Northern Ireland: how fragile is the peace process?
The Briefing Room
BBC
4.8 • 731 Ratings
🗓️ 15 April 2021
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
There’s been violence on the streets of Northern Ireland in recent days, most of it in Protestant areas. On occasion it spilled over the sectarian divide.
The proximate cause appears to be twofold: the refusal of the Northern Ireland prosecution service to bring charges against Sinn Fein members who apparently broke lockdown rules to attend a funeral last summer; and the Northern Ireland Protocol, which under the Brexit deal, means that checks apply to goods travelling from Britain to Northern Ireland.
There are other, longer term grievances, in particular a perception that the Good Friday Agreement privileged the Catholic community at the expense of Protestants.
Many fingers are now pointing at Westminster where the British government is accused of inactivity and indifference. More protests have been promised.
So, how fragile is the peace process?
Producers: Tim Mansel, Kirsteen Knight, Paul Moss Editor: Jasper Corbett
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:05.0 | Welcome to the briefing room with me, David Aronovich. |
| 0:16.0 | It's the virtual space where experts on one of the big issues of the day tell you and me what's really going on, |
| 0:22.1 | inside 28 minutes. In this edition, petrol bombs and water cannon on the streets of Belfast, |
| 0:28.6 | 23 years after the Good Friday Agreement, is the peace beginning to unravel? |
| 0:34.8 | On Wednesday of last week, one of the gates in one of the peace walls in Belfast was breached by rioters. |
| 0:40.3 | It was the culmination of a week of escalating violence in parts of Northern Ireland. |
| 0:45.3 | Then, everything went quiet to mark the period of mourning for the Duke of Edinburgh, |
| 0:50.3 | which will soon come to an end. |
| 0:53.3 | This week, I want to know, 23 years on from the signing of the Good Friday Agreement |
| 0:58.0 | whether the peace process is in peril and what might be done to save it. |
| 1:03.0 | Step into the briefing room and together we'll find out. |
| 1:10.0 | First, a primer on the recent violence. |
| 1:15.0 | Here's Catherine Morrison, a reporter for the BBC in Northern Ireland. |
| 1:19.2 | She starts with a big funeral last year that many of us didn't notice. |
| 1:27.0 | The funeral of the veteran Republican Bobby story took place back in the summer of 2020. |
| 1:34.5 | Now, he was considered the head of intelligence of the IRA for a period and his funeral took place when COVID restrictions were fairly tight around who could attend. |
| 1:46.9 | So there was controversy when a large number of people turned out, including senior members of Sinn Féin. |
| 1:58.1 | Complaints were made and it emerged in the last few weeks that the public prosecution service had decided not to prosecute anyone involved. |
| 2:08.1 | That decision did meet with anger from unionist parts of the community. For example, Arlene Foster, the first minister and the leader of the DUP, who called for the resignation of the Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland. |
| 2:22.9 | Riots then took place over the following days. |
| 2:28.4 | There had been a few nights of pretty localised, low-level disturbances in a loyalist area of Londonderry. |
... |
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