‘Border buster’ shows why Brexit frontier checks in Northern Ireland would matter

KINAWLEY, Northern Ireland (Reuters) – Near one of the scores of small border crossings on the island of Ireland, a yellow digger stands as a monument to the lengths communities went to keep roads open during Northern Ireland’s violent “Troubles”.

Nicknamed the “border buster”, it was bought via fundraising by locals for around 3,000 pounds ($3,855) in 1992.

They used it to defy a British army policy of closing or destroying back roads and funnelling traffic through military checkpoints that were in place on major roads until a peace deal mostly ended three decades of violence six years later.

The digger, now on a dais and marked by a plaque, shows why the 500 km (350 mile) frontier matters so much in the debate over how Britain leaves the European Union, and the resistance any checks between British-run Northern Ireland and EU-member Ireland could meet.

While police on both sides of the border fear any resulting checkpoints could become a target for hold-out militant groups opposed to the peace accord, the first spark of disorder could just as easily come from locals going about their business.