The Guardian’s Ireland correspondent, Rory Carroll, looks at what is fuelling loyalist anger in Northern Ireland
The Guardian’s Rory Carroll talks to Anushka Asthana about the recent eruption of violence in Northern Ireland that began at the end of March, triggered, Rory says, by the decision of the police and prosecutors not to arrest or charge anyone who attended the funeral of a former IRA commander Bobby Storey last summer. According to loyalists, the police are now biased towards Sinn Féin.
It is part of a loyalist narrative, Rory tells Anushka, that set in after the 1998 Good Friday agreement. Instead of a settlement, a new dawn, Sinn Féin and its allies used the agreement to chip away at Northern Ireland, removing royal symbols, removing the union jack from Belfast city hall and erecting Irish-language signs. Brexit has further increased the tensions. Loyalists believe the DUP let Boris Johnson weaken Northern Ireland’s link to the UK in order to clinch a deal.
