.People attend a vigil at Guildhall for the 29-year-old journalist Lyra McKee
.People attend a vigil at Guildhall for the 29-year-old journalist Lyra McKeeReuters

Two teenagers were arrested by Northern Ireland police on Saturday in connection with the killing of journalist Lyra McKee. They were detained under the Terrorism Act.

Lyra Mckee, 29, a prominent Irish journalist who was named as one of Forbes Magazine's 30 under 30 in 2016, was shot in Northern Ireland as she was watching the riots of the New IRA in Londonderry on Thursday night. McKee was standing near a police vehicle with other journalists and was shot by a bullet fired by rioters at the police, dying shortly later.

Police say that New IRA dissidents were responsible for her death. The New IRA (Irish Republican Army) is a Irish republican paramilitary group which strives for a united Ireland, rejecting the Good Friday peace agreement signed 21 years ago. The Northern Ireland group engages in periodic riots and violence against the police.

Chief detective Jason Murphy of the Northern Ireland Police Service said on Saturday that the violence is worsening. "What we are seeing is a new breed of terrorist coming through the ranks and that for me is a very worrying situation," he said.

"I believe both of those [arrested suspects] are members of the new IRA and I believe both were involved in the attack on Lyra," Murphy said at a press conference on Saturday. "Lyra was killed by shots that were fired indiscriminately. The gunman showed no thought for who may have been killed or injured when he fired these shots.

Murphy also said that Mckee's death has caused a "palpable change" in the community's support of the police. "Yesterday we realized that the vast majority of communities across the whole of Northern Ireland support policing and support police and they support the peace process," Murphy said.

"What we saw yesterday was the visible demonstration of that within the Creggan community. A community that has been very frightened for a long time and for a large part has been held to ransom by terrorist organizations that claim to represent them," Murphy concluded.