The focus of this article is an analysis of the potential for Northern Ireland’s loyalist terror groups to return to political violence following their 1994 ceasefire and the 1998 Belfast/Good Friday Agreement (GFA) that effectively brought the 1968-1998 Irish Troubles to an end. While loyalist groups have maintained their ceasefire, during this period they have been active in organised crime, including drug trafficking and dealing that resulted in a joint operation between the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), An Garda Siochana (Irish police) and the UK’s National Crime Agency to tackle this. As these are not political crimes, they have not been investigated by the PSNI's counterterrorism unit and the UK’s Security Service (MI5) as they have done with dissident Republican groups like the New IRA (NIRA). Although since the 1994 loyalist groups’ ceasefire they have not been involved in acts of terrorism in either Northern Ireland or the Irish Republic, in 2022 they made it clear that they will no longer observe the GFA peace process. Since the decision by Belfast City Council to stop flying the union flag over Belfast City Hall in 2012 all year round, the last ten years has seen an incremental move by loyalist groups towards violence that could cross over into political violence. Should they do so, such activity could result in dissident republican groups like the NIRA carrying out revenge attacks on loyalist communities.
In assessing the current situation, this article examines how in the last ten years loyalist groups have become increasingly forceful in defending the territories their communities reside due to what they perceive as an erosion of their culture, history and political influence in Northern Ireland by analysing their response to the decision to stop flying the union flag over Belfast City Hall, the introduction of legisaltion that promotes the Irish language and culture and, of greater concern, the Northern Ireland protocol. The content of this article is part of a wider research project I am currently involved in in Northern Ireland on drafting a hate crime Bill and developing a wider strategy to safeguard those from being drawn towards paramilitarism and hate crime, with a focus on young people.
ORCID: 
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)