Unfortunately, the threat from militant republicans is here to stay

The so-called New IRA which admitted killing journalist and activist Lyra McKee during a night of riots in Derry’s Creggan estate may have announced its formation in July 2012, but its origins stretch back five years earlier, writes Dieter Reinisch

On 28 January 2007, an extraordinary ard fheis of Sinn Féin supported policing in the North. Less than a year and a half after the decommissioning by the Provisional IRA in September 2005, throwing its support behind the PSNI was another crucial step towards constitutional nationalism of the Provisionals.