Marking 25 years of the 1994 IRA ceasefire
Downtown/Cool FM's Chief Reporter Damien Edgar looks at how peace is once again threatened in 2019.
25 years ago the first seeds of a lasting peace were being sown.
On the 31st of August 1994, the IRA released a statement which said from midnight there would be "a complete cessation of military operations."
The announcement followed months of speculation that a ceasefire was imminent, but to many it still came as a surprise.
Although the 1994 ceasefire ended in February 1996 with the Canary Wharf bombing in London, it did pave the way for the beginning of the peace process in the following years.
But with the rise in dissident republican activity this year - such as bomb attacks on police and the murder of Lyra McKee - it proves Northern Ireland's peace is imperfect.
Lyra's partner Sara Canning says the surge in activity by the New IRA can't be justified in 2019:
"Lyra's murder wasn't regrettable, it was despicable. And the fact of the matter is, no one should have been shot that night, no one's life should have been lost.
"No one is a 'legitimate target' any more, we are living in a different time.
"And what they are doing isn't democratic, they're not revolutionaries, there is no revolution here."
29-year-old Lyra died as a result of her injuries after she was shot on the Creggan estate on April 18. The New IRA admitted responsiblity for the death of the young journalist who was standing close to PSNI officers when the shots were fired.
The New IRA has been extremely active in the past eight months, perhaps taking advantage of Brexit and Stormont uncertainty. But for Sara, it's an ideology that doesn't add up:
"To try and justify it by saying the police prescence was responsible for Lyra's death... the police were there to do a job and these people brought a gun onto the streets, fully proving their objective.
"I don't forgive the person who murdered Lyra. I have no forgiveness for them. But I wouldn't want to put their family through what I've gone through and what Lyra's family have gone through, because it's awful and no one deserves to go through that."
While during the Troubles Sinn Fein came to be seen as the political wing of the IRA, the group Saoradh has now become associated with the New IRA.
It's a link the party denies, but chairperson Brian Kenna refused to call out those behind Lyra McKee's murder:
"This idea of condeming people who resist British rule in Ireland has long been debunked by republicans, all down through the years, and I wouldn't be in a mindset to go along that road.
"It genuinely came about because of the heavy prescence of the PSNI flooding into Derry at seven o'clock in the evening. It was shocking and tragic and we're on record as saying that we regret it very, very much."
So 25 years on from the 1994 ceasefire, Northern Ireland once again finds itself battling to step out from the shadow of the gunmen.