Hotel Is Bombed in Suspected IRA Attack
Suspected Irish Republican Army dissidents bombed a rural hotel Sunday in an attack that caused no reported injuries but gave Northern Ireland a bitter reminder of the days the province is struggling to leave behind.
It was the first suspected IRA attack here in two years, and it came as international pressure was building on the outlawed IRA to begin disarming in support of Northern Ireland’s 1998 peace accord.
A caller claiming to be from the Continuity IRA, a small dissident group opposed to the IRA’s 1997 truce, told the BBC in Belfast, the provincial capital, that bombs had been left at two hotels in rural County Fermanagh.
Police evacuated both hotels shortly before a bomb went off at the rear of Mahon’s Hotel in the village of Irvinestown. They said the bomb was placed beneath the hotel’s main oil storage tank, causing a fire that spread to nearby cars.
Authorities couldn’t immediately find any suspicious devices at the other threatened hotel.
No IRA dissident group had launched such an attack since 1998. There were several bombings in the province last year, but they were the work of pro-British groups.
Every political party in Northern Ireland condemned the attack, including the IRA-allied Sinn Fein.
The blast gave further urgency to the demands that the IRA begin disarming.
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