Bomb Fuels Hate Amid Peace Talks Explosion Devastates Anti-Catholic Community

A powerful car bomb devastated the center of Northern Ireland’s most fiercely Protestant town Monday, fueling sectarian hatred at a critical time in peace negotiations.

Portadown is a militant bastion of pro-British and anti-Catholic sentiment in Northern Ireland. Local Catholic politician Brid Rodgers said the bombers’ choice of target was “like throwing a stick of dynamite into the negotiating room.”

Police received telephone warnings in time to evacuate downtown Portadown minutes before the bomb went off, leveling two buildings, starting a fire in another and damaging roofs and windows across town. There were no injuries.

The attack came about an hour after negotiations resumed in Belfast without the IRA-allied Sinn Fein party, which was newly excluded because of two recent killings blamed on the Irish Republican Army. Sinn Fein is to be readmitted into the talks March 9, barring more accusations of violence.

No group claimed responsibility for the bomb. Police said they suspected a shadowy group of anti-British extremists who oppose the IRA’s 7-month-old truce and call themselves Continuity IRA.

Protestant leaders blamed the IRA itself, arguing it uses fictional cover names when it doesn’t want to acknowledge an attack that might damage the IRA politically.

“The IRA weren’t getting what they wanted out of the talks. This is their response,” said David Trimble, leader of Northern Ireland’s biggest party, the Ulster Unionists.

Trimble, who represents Portadown in the British Parliament, said the attack made it impossible for Sinn Fein to be readmitted to negotiations, which are supposed to conclude by May. “That possibility has now been exploded - literally,” he said.