The fresh graffiti on the Falls Road was both crude and contemptuous.
“Fuck you and your pizza. Brits out,” it declared in bright orange-red letters.
Sprayed on a building not far from Sinn Fein’s headquarters, it screamed out support for the dissident republican gunmen who killed two British soldiers.
Given Northern Ireland’s tradition of fearsome wall-painting and vicious political art, however, a few isolated slogans imply fairly limited backing for any resumption of violence.
On the Kilwilkie estate in Lurgan, often identified as a stronghold of dissident activity, the walls were thickly decorated with Real IRA (RIRA) slogans. Older Provisional IRA symbols had been defaced.
“Sinn Fein sell out” had been painted on a wall overlooking wasteland by opponents of the peace process. Black stencilled patterns on several gable ends are emblazoned with small Continuity IRA (CIRA) logos on top of a balaclava-clad figure clutching a rifle.
But on the streets of the estate, residents offered little sympathy for such anti-ceasefire groups. It was more often disdain.
“We don’t want to go back to all that killing,” an elderly resident said. “We were just getting back to peace and quiet. It’s mostly young fellows just out of school who haven’t got anything to do.”
Tony Heaney was waiting at a bus stop for his young daughter to return from school.
“I’m worried about the danger of retaliation,” he said. “I’m glad to see peace. These dissidents don’t have the support of the community. I’ve lived through all the Troubles and I don’t want my children doing the same.”
A mother beside him said: “It’s just young people who are bored. They put up RIRA graffiti but at the end of the day it’s us who will suffer.”
Two 15-year-old boys wearing hooded tracksuits and standing on a street corner in the center of Lurgan voiced enthusiasm for the RIRA killings.
“People think it’s a great thing,” one of the youngsters said. “There’s a lot of support for the organization because of what’s happened. These shootings will attract more people in. It shows what they can do.”
Asked whether his age group had missed out on the excitement of Northern Ireland’s Troubles, one youth agreed. “They do miss the excitement, yes.”
A Sinn Fein worker at the party’s office in the center of Lurgan claimed support for dissident paramilitary groups was overestimated by the media. The party usually refers to them as “micro-groups.”
“People give them a credibility beyond their means. We are often talking about just one or two families. The danger is how it’s handled by the police and media,” he said.
The main Dublin to Belfast railway runs through the town. At the weekend police investigated claims that dissidents had left an explosive device near the line.
More RIRA slogans appeared in the town center before being painted out by the council. On a nearby estate, loyalists, threatening retaliation, had daubed: “An eye 4 an eye, back 2 war.”
In Belfast, Sean Smith, a spokesman for Republican Sinn Fein, the political wing of CIRA that parted from the main republican movement in the 1980s, said: “We regret any loss of life.”
But he said: “Where there’s an occupying force, there will always be those who rise against them. There’s a garrison of 5,000 British soldiers here ... the provisionals [Sinn Fein] are now in government in Stormont and are the directors of British rule.”
In its latest report last November, the government-funded Independent Monitoring Commission, which reports on paramilitary activity in the province, said the RIRA was “active and dangerous.”
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