Trouble Brewing in the Emerald Isle?

Storm clouds may be on the horizon in Northern Ireland.

Two British soldiers were shot dead in the attack in front of the main gates of the Massereene Barracks in Antrim, hours before they were due to leave for Afghanistan.

They were ambushed by gunmen firing automatic rifles as they went to take delivery of pizzas they had ordered ahead of a flight to Helmand province.

Two other soldiers were left badly wounded and two Domino's delivery men were also injured.

Will this mean the end of the peace process? Hopefully not.

Noel McAdam, writing on March 9th, immediately after the killings, was optimistic. He felt that the killings and the dark history they represent would make people only work harder for peace.
n all probability the dastardly attack which cost two young soldiers their lives, and seriously injured others, will help to galvanise the Stormont power-sharing administration.

As a grim reminder of the dark days we all thought had been consigned to the past — and a full 14 years after the last ‘successful’ republican terrorist operation against Army personnel — the Massereene massacre attempt both crystallises the extent of Northern Ireland’s transformation and exemplifies how far the province still has to travel. . .

In the shock and pain of the hours following the killings, parties could perhaps be forgiven for slipping into automatic rhetoric mode. Yet the response so far shows that, unlike the last dispensation, the main parties have yet to achieve the recognition of each other’s needs

Adams is writing in the Belfast Telegraph, in Northern Ireland (which, although on Irish soil, is part of the United Kingdom. That's one of the things they're fighting about).

Farther to the south, in the Irish Republic, the sentiment is the same.

No return to North's dark days

THE MURDER of two British soldiers by dissident republicans on Saturday represents as much a danger to the quality of life on this island as the threatened collapse of the global economy. Make no mistake about it, any resumption of violence in Northern Ireland will cause inestimable damage to the peace process, prevent foreign investment and contribute to rising unemployment and falling living standards. Having come so far, there should be no return to the dark days of the past (The Irish Times).

But now it looks like things are getting worse. Another killing, of a constable.

"We are staring into the abyss," warned Social Democratic and Labour Party MP Dolores Kelly, but Prime Minister Gordon Brown vowed last night there would be no return to the "old days" of the province's Troubles.

Constable Stephen Carroll, 48, was shot in the head at 9.45pm on Monday (8.45am AEDT yesterday) while sitting in his patrol car in a republican area of Craigavon, 30km southwest of Belfast.

The Continuity IRA last night claimed responsibity for the attack. Another splinter group, the Real IRA admitted blame for the fatal shooting at 9.30pm on Saturday of two soldiers who were collecting pizzas outside an army base northwest of Belfast.

These were the first killings of British security forces in Northern Ireland since 1997 -- the year before loyalist and republicans tried to leave behind decades of bloodshed by striking a peace deal that called for paramilitary disarmament and power-sharing.

"There is little point appealing to the people who planned and did this, but all of us have to realise we are on the brink of something absolutely awful," said Ms Kelly. "All of us have to get together to pull ourselves back from the brink. A tiny handful of people with nothing to say and nothing to offer cannot be allowed to destroy so much."

It's going to take people who are strong enough to look violence and evil in the face, and then have the courage to not strike back.

I must say, I don't like the look of this. It reminds me too much of an event that occurred the last time we ran this course (2006): the bombing of the The Askariya Shrine in Iraq )go the the February 23 entry). "There are fears that this will flame into a civil war," this blogger writes. "[Iraq] is looking more and more like a quagmire."

Who was that prescient blogger? Guess.