DERRY (UNITED KINGDOM) - In the Irish border city of Derry, residents voiced concern on Tuesday that a car bombing could mark the opening of a fresh chapter of paramilitary conflict, stoked by a Brexit-driven debate over Northern Ireland.
Police suspect the car bomb was the work of the dissident republican group New IRA
The walled city -- once a flashpoint of violence in the three decades of sectarian strife known as "The Troubles" -- has also seen three security alerts in the last 24 hours caused by masked men hijacking vehicles.
Officials have been at pains to point out there is no link to the current turmoil over Brexit but concede that dissident groups could use the uncertainty as a pretext.
Residents of the city agreed.
"The Brexit thing, the hard border thing, if it comes about, it will provide the militants with the excuse that they presently don't have," said Eamon Melaugh, 86.
"It will give them the ammunition -- pun intended -- to start another border campaign," he said.
- 'The bad old days' -
Melaugh lives in sheltered accommodation opposite the courthouse near where the car bomb went off on Saturday.
He heard the blast, fearing that his son who had left just three minutes before was caught up in it.
Following a tip-off, officers were aready evacuating the area -- packed with Saturday night revellers -- when the hijacked vehicle detonated. There were no casualties.
But that was followed by a night of chaos on Monday, with three security alerts triggered over suspect vehicles -- two of which were hijacked at gunpoint.
On Tuesday, the street outside the courthouse remained scarred by the bombing that police suspect was the work of the dissident republican group New IRA.
"That's a warning. It should be a clear warning," Melaugh said.
"The politicians in England -- particularly the Conservatives -- should see it as a warning but they're so tied up in the ballyhoo about Brexit that they don't have time."
"There's a great deal of frustration by people that we're going back to what is termed 'the bad old days'," Melaugh added.
- 'We don't want it' -
A veteran republican activist who believes in pursuing a united Ireland through peaceful means, Melaugh was one of the organisers of the city's October 5, 1968, civil rights march widely considered the start of "The Troubles".
Over three decades of the conflict Derry saw some of the greatest bloodshed as republicans fought unionists and the British army.
With the constitutional status of Northern Ireland on the agenda thanks to Brexit, there is concern that the mainly dormant paramilitary fringes which resisted the 1998 Good Friday peace accord may become active once more.
"The people are obviously upset and they're worried that things are going to start kicking off again -- we don't want it," said Finnula McMonagle, 54, who owns a hair salon one street away from the courthouse.
The emboldened activity of such paramilitaries is "definitely" caused by Brexit turbulence, she said.
"They're trying to show that they're not gone yet and they're not going to accept the deals they don't want," she added.
- A hardy city -
Speaking on Tuesday, police attempted to allay fears that a looming hard Brexit is driving unrest.
"We don't see this as Brexit-related," said Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) superintendent Gordon McCalmont.
"This threat has been very real to us as police officers managing the risk over a year, or two years."
He was speaking in a police station bristling with fortification, an unusual sight in Britain -- and a reminder that Derry is a city hardened by past troubles, but keen to not repeat them.
"We don't want to go back to what it was like in the days gone by, I just couldn't cope with that," said Anne McWilliams, a retired lifelong resident walking the streets.
"The young people coming up now, I wouldn't want them to go through the same thing as I had to go through myself."
But residents are taking the current state of heightened security in their stride in a city where armed police still routinely patrol the city in armoured cars.
"As bombs go it was a fairly small one," said Melaugh, strolling along the street still blackened by the blast.