Cracks exposed at heart of Northern Irish peace by 'cash-for-ash' scandal

FILE PHOTO - Arlene Foster (R) and Martin McGuinness, First and Deputy First Ministers of Northern Ireland, speak to journalists as they leave Number 10 Downing Street in London, Britain October 24, 2016. REUTERS/Dylan Martinez/File Photo

BELFAST (Reuters) - After a decade of bitter compromises over paramilitaries and policing, Northern Ireland's power-sharing government finally fell apart this week over the abuse by farmers of a green-energy grant to burn fuels such as wood pellets instead of coal.

The confrontation has exposed a growing rupture in trust between Catholic Irish nationalists and pro-British Protestant unionists whose cooperation underpins the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement that ended three decades of bloodshed.