Belfast holds funeral service for journalist Lyra McKee

LONDON

The funeral of murdered Northern Irish journalist Lyra McKee was held in Belfast with the attendance of top British and Irish politicians as well as hundreds of family members and friends on Wednesday.

The 29-year-old journalist was killed last week in a terrorist incident, while observing a police operation in the Creggan area of the city of Londonderry.

The murder, which was later claimed by the dissident republican group the “New-IRA”, has shocked the communities in Northern Ireland as it is regarded as the first sectarian murder since the 1998 Belfast Agreement that ended the violence in the region.

British Prime Minister Theresa May called the incident “shocking and truly senseless.”

Following the murder, she wrote on Twitter: “My deepest condolences go to her family, friends and colleagues. She was a journalist who died doing her job with great courage."

The funeral held in St. Anne’s Cathedral saw the attendance of Irish President Michael D. Higgins, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar and U.K.’s May.

Ireland’s Deputy Prime Minister Simon Coveney, the Democratic Unionist Party leader Arlene Foster, British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald and vice president Michelle O’Neil, Scottish National Party (SNP) leader in Westminster Ian Blackford, British Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradley were among many other politicians attended the funeral service.

The tensions in Northern Ireland have been running high due to uncertainties of Brexit and the lack of devolved government since its collapse due to a botched energy saving scheme in January 2017.

A car bomb which targeted a courthouse in Londonderry (Derry) in January was blamed by local police on the self-declared “New IRA” -- Irish Republican Army.

The border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic has been one of the thorniest issues in Brexit negotiations between the U.K. and the EU.

A deal reached by May and EU officials has been thrice rejected by the House of Commons mainly due to the backstop clause -- a measure to avoid a hard Irish border.

Northern Ireland voted to remain in the EU in a 2016 referendum, and it is feared that the Brexit process could trigger enmity in the region.

The Troubles -- an era of conflict between the British government and pro-British paramilitaries on one side and Irish republicans and nationalists on the other -- ended in 1998 after the Belfast Agreement put an end to decades of armed struggle in the divided U.K. region of Northern Ireland.

The U.K. and the Republic of Ireland signed the deal, brokered by the U.S. and eight political parties in Northern Ireland, on April 10, 1998.

The deal -- dubbed the Good Friday Agreement -- largely saw the end of the Troubles-era violence, in which some 3,500 people lost their lives.

However, splinter IRA groups are still active in the U.K. region.

Londonderry, where McKee was killed, was one of the locations that saw the fiercest clashes during the Troubles and the scene of 1972 Bloody Sunday incident, during which British paratroopers killed 14 civil rights movement protesters.