Second ceasefire

On 9 February 1996, less than two years after the declaration of the ceasefire, the IRA revoked it with the Docklands bombing in the Canary Wharf area of London, killing two people and causing £85 million in damage to the city's financial centre. Sinn Féin blamed the failure of the ceasefire on the UK government's refusal to begin all-party negotiations until the IRA decommissioned its weapons.^[92]

The attack was followed by several more, most notably the Manchester Bombing, which destroyed a large area of the centre of the city on 15 June 1996. It was the largest bomb attack in Britain since World War II. While the attack avoided any fatalities due to the rapid response of the emergency services to a telephone warning, over 200 people were injured in the attack, many of them outside the established cordon. The damage caused by the blast was valued at £411 million. The last British soldier to die in the Troubles, Lance BombardierStephen Restorick, was also killed during this period, on 12 February 1997, by the "South Armagh sniper".

The IRA reinstated their ceasefire in July 1997, as negotiations for the document that would become known as the Good Friday Agreement were starting without Sinn Féin. In September of the same year Sinn Féin signed the Mitchell Principles and was invited into the talks.

The UVF was the first paramilitary grouping to split as a result of their ceasefire, spawning the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) in 1996. In December 1997, the INLA assassinated LVF leader Billy Wright, leading to a series of revenge killings of Catholics by loyalist groups. In addition, a group of Republicans split from the Provisional IRA and formed the Real IRA.

In August 1998, a Real IRA bomb in Omagh killed 29 civilians. This bombing largely discredited "dissident" Republicans and their campaigns in the eyes of most nationalists. They became small groups with little influence, but still capable of violence.^[93] The INLA also declared a ceasefire after the Belfast Agreement of 1998.

Since then, most paramilitary violence has been directed inwards, at their "own" communities and at other factions within their organisations. The UDA, for example, has feuded with their fellow loyalists the UVF on two occasions since 2000. There have also been internal struggles for power between "Brigade commanders" and involvement in organised crime.^[94]

Provisional IRA members have also been accused of killing men, such as Robert McCartney, Matthew Ignatius Burns and Andrew Kearney.