In September 1986, the Provisional IRA held a General Army Convention (GAC), the organisation's supreme decision-making body.

Although the Garda Síochána had suspicions that the organisation existed, they were unsure of its name, labelling it the "Irish National Republican Army".

[18] On 21 January 1994, on the 75th anniversary of the First Dáil Éireann, a group of men in paramilitary dress offered a "final salute" to Tom Maguire by firing over his grave.

[19] Garda Special Branch detectives raided the headquarters of Republican Sinn Féin at Arran Quay, Dublin, two days after the graveside volley, seizing files and questioning staff.

[20] In February 1994 it was reported that in previous months Gardaí had found arms dumps along the Cooley Peninsula in County Louth that did not belong to the Provisional IRA, and forensics tests determined had been used for firing practice recently.

In the 18th Independent Monitoring Commission's report, the RIRA, the CIRA and the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) were deemed a potential future threat.

Since the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 the CIRA, along with other paramilitaries opposing the ceasefire, have been involved with a countless number of punishment shootings and beatings.

The officer was fatally shot by a sniper as he and a colleague investigated "suspicious activity" at a house nearby when a window was smashed by youths causing the occupant to phone the police.

In a press interview with Republican Sinn Féin some days later, regarded by some to be the political wing of the Continuity IRA, Richard Walsh described the attacks as "acts of war".

[citation needed] It was believed the threat was issued after a Traveller feud which resulted in a pipe bomb attack in Bessbrook, near Newry.

[31][failed verification] On Easter 2016, the Continuity IRA marched in paramilitary uniforms through North Lurgan, Co Armagh, without any hindrance from the PSNI who monitored the parade from a police helicopter.

[35] This argument is based on the view that the surviving anti-Treaty members of the Second Dáil delegated their "authority" to the IRA Army Council in 1938.

J. Bowyer Bell, in his The Irish Troubles, describes Maguire's opinion in 1986: "abstentionism was a basic tenet of republicanism, a moral issue of principle.

[16] These changes within the IRA were accompanied by changes on the political side and at the 1986 Sinn Féin Ard Fheis (party conference), which followed the IRA Convention, the party's policy of abstentionism, which forbade Sinn Féin elected representatives from taking seats in the Oireachtas, the parliament of the Republic, was dropped.

The traditionalists, having lost at both conventions, walked out of the Mansion House, met that evening at the West County Hotel, and reformed as Republican Sinn Féin (RSF).

[12] According to a report in the Cork Examiner, the Continuity IRA's first chief of staff was Dáithí Ó Conaill,[37] who also served as the first chairman of RSF from 1986 to 1987.

[39] In 2005, Irish Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform Michael McDowell told Dáil Éireann that the organisation had a maximum of 150 members.

[40] The CIRA is an illegal organisation under UK (section 11(1) of the Terrorism Act 2000) and ROI law due to the use of 'IRA' in the group's name, in a situation analogous to that of the Real Irish Republican Army (RIRA).

Security sources in Ireland have expressed the suspicion that, in co-operation with the RIRA, the Continuity IRA may have acquired arms and materiel from the Balkans.

Supporters of the Continuity IRA leadership claim that this resulted from an internal disagreement, which although brought to a conclusion, was followed by some people leaving the organisation anyway.

[48] The Saoirse na hÉireann (SNH) group was composed of "disaffected and largely young republicans" and was responsible for a number of bomb hoaxes, two of which took place in September 2006.

[53] In June 2011 CIRA member Liam Kenny was murdered, allegedly by drug dealers, at his home in Clondalkin, West Dublin.

Limerick Real IRA volunteer Rose Lynch pleaded guilty to this murder at the Special Criminal Court and was sentenced to life imprisonment.