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Mural of Pro-British Unionists in Belfast
Photo: Charles McQuillan / Getty Images
It was only six words.
But in Northern Ireland they brought back bitter memories.
At the end of January they suddenly appeared in white capital letters on a gray wall at the entrance to the port of Larne: "ALL BORDER POST STAFF ARE TARGETS" - all border control officers are targets.
An unmistakable threat.
Two weeks later, the words are gone.
They were hastily whitewashed.
Now there is only an ocher square on a gray wall.
However, someone else sprayed two crosshairs on them.
Targets.
Yet again.
“Crazy, isn't it?” Says a blonde woman who works next door in the lightless container of the “Breakfast and Burger Bar”.
Then she laughs, "typically Northern Ireland," before disappearing again into a cloud of frying fat.
It's icy days in Larne.
And not just because of the biting wind that blows over the North Channel from Scotland, 30 kilometers away.
All of a sudden, the small town of 18,000 is at the center of a political dispute that is new and ancient at the same time - and which has what it takes to reopen badly healed wounds in Northern Ireland.
If it did, the Brexit arguers from London and Brussels would have failed together.
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