It is now almost three decades since the Good Friday Agreement effectively ended the Troubles in Northern Ireland, a cycle of violence that itself lasted for a similar span of time after the first British troops were deployed in the province in 1969. Yet still, as recent events on the Garvaghy Road in Portadown demonstrate, the peace process is not over.
It is fragile, and the resentments and tensions that tore communities apart for decades, if not centuries, remain not so far from the surface. Some of the most potent of these concern the legacy of the Troubles, and the search for justice, or at least a measure of what is usually termed “closure” for the many families who lost loved ones during the long years of violence.
