Thread:KNN005/@comment-25266931-20170304160915/@comment-27404492-20170316194814

Its complicated but yes it's a NI thing. The IRA that fought the Irish war of independence split into the Irish army and the anti treaty IRA. Then the civil war happened, the IRA were still around, then they were interred by the Irish government during WW2 because they threatened Irish neutrality. They they started a campaign against the British in the fifties to get the north back. That failed.

Then in the sixties the British living in NI started attacking Irish people. So to stop that the British government sent in the army, that completely backfired and a three way war between the Irish paramilitaries (mostly the provisional IRA and the Real IRA) the British unionist paramilitaries and the British government. Thirty years later, everyone is sick of fight and the Good Friday agreement gets signed with a NI regional government run by the unionist leader who started the whole thing and the PIRA's former head of staff. Basically the IRA is still around as well as the unionist paramilitaries and the police try to stay the fuck away because the know that neither side likes them