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| In Northern Ireland Town, Painful Memories Lie Beneath a Fragile Peace | In Northern Ireland Town, Painful Memories Lie Beneath a Fragile Peace |
| (about 11 hours later) | |
| A few days after a gunman fired multiple shots into a police detective in this busy market town six weeks ago, Pauline Harte’s young son came home and asked her, “Whose side are we on?” | A few days after a gunman fired multiple shots into a police detective in this busy market town six weeks ago, Pauline Harte’s young son came home and asked her, “Whose side are we on?” |
| “We don’t pick sides,” Ms. Harte said she told him, repeating a message she has carried with her since she was 19 years old, and lost her leg to a deadly car bomb planted in Omagh in 1998 by a splinter group of the Irish Republican Army. | “We don’t pick sides,” Ms. Harte said she told him, repeating a message she has carried with her since she was 19 years old, and lost her leg to a deadly car bomb planted in Omagh in 1998 by a splinter group of the Irish Republican Army. |
| Twenty-five years after the Good Friday Agreement ended the era of bloodshed known as the Troubles, this is a moment to celebrate reconciliation across Northern Ireland. President Biden, King Charles III and a parade of other world leaders, past and present, will travel to Belfast, Northern Ireland’s capital, this month to commemorate the signing of the accord on April 10, 1998. | Twenty-five years after the Good Friday Agreement ended the era of bloodshed known as the Troubles, this is a moment to celebrate reconciliation across Northern Ireland. President Biden, King Charles III and a parade of other world leaders, past and present, will travel to Belfast, Northern Ireland’s capital, this month to commemorate the signing of the accord on April 10, 1998. |
| Yet the shooting of the detective outside a youth sports center — for which another I.R.A. splinter group swiftly took responsibility — is a reminder that in this land of ready smiles and ancient hatreds, the past is not always easy to leave behind. | Yet the shooting of the detective outside a youth sports center — for which another I.R.A. splinter group swiftly took responsibility — is a reminder that in this land of ready smiles and ancient hatreds, the past is not always easy to leave behind. |
| In Omagh, about 60 miles west of Belfast, many remember the Good Friday anniversary less for the peace agreement than the horrific attack that came four months after it was signed. The car bomb killed 29 people, among them two Spanish tourists, six teenagers, six children and a woman pregnant with twins. It was the deadliest single attack of the Troubles, the last angry wave in a blood-dimmed tide. | |
| Ms. Harte, who is Catholic, said she was distraught about the shooting of the detective, John Caldwell, which left him seriously injured. She also worries because the British government announced in February that it would open a new inquiry into the 1998 bombing, prodded by questions about whether the police could have averted it if they had received better intelligence about the bombers that August afternoon. |