Real Irish Republican Army
[6]: 33 In November 1997, McKevitt and other dissidents held a meeting in a farmhouse in Oldcastle, County Meath, and a new organisation, styling itself Óglaigh na hÉireann, was formed.
The organisation rejects the Mitchell Principles and the Good Friday Agreement, comparing the latter to the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty which resulted in the partition of Ireland.
[6]: 87 [10][11] On 9 May the organisation announced its existence, in a coded telephone call to Belfast media claiming responsibility for a mortar attack on a police station in Belleek, County Fermanagh.
This led to a series of high-profile arrests and seizures by the Garda Síochána in the first half of 1998; these involved the death of RIRA member Rónán Mac Lochlainn who was shot dead trying to escape from police, following an attempted robbery of a security van in County Wicklow.
[6]: 257–260 In 1999, the RIRA began preparations for a renewed campaign, and in May three members travelled to Split in Croatia to purchase arms, which were smuggled back to Ireland.
[23] Officers found a firing range inside a disused wine cellar being used as an underground bunker, and seized weapons including an assault rifle, a submachine gun, a semi-automatic pistol and an RPG-18 rocket launcher.
[6]: 335 [30] After the Omagh bombing, the RIRA leadership were unwilling to launch a full-scale campaign in Northern Ireland due to the possibility of civilians being killed.
[6]: 338 Instead they decided to launch a series of attacks in England, in particular London, which they hoped would attract disenchanted Provisional IRA members to join the RIRA.
[6]: 349–350 [22]: 84 [35] In November 2000, security forces foiled a plot to drive 500 lb of homemade explosives to central London that month, a bomb twice as powerful as the one in Omagh.
[36] On 21 February 2001, a bomb disguised as a torch left outside a Territorial Army base in Shepherd's Bush seriously injured a 14-year-old cadet, who was blinded and had his hand blown off.
[39] The explosion was captured by a BBC cameraman, and the footage was broadcast on TV stations worldwide, and gained mass publicity for the group.
[6]: 340 On 19 June 2000 a bomb was found in the grounds of Hillsborough Castle, home of Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Peter Mandelson.
[53] In December a six-day security operation ended when a 70 lb bomb found under railway tracks at Killeen Bridge near Newry was defused.
The operation began following telephone warnings, and the road and railway line connecting Newry to Dundalk were closed due to security alerts.
[56] On 29 March 2002 the RIRA targeted a former member of the Royal Irish Regiment from Sion Mills, County Tyrone, with a bomb attached to his car that failed to explode.
[69] On 27 October 2006, a large amount of explosives was found in Kilbranish, Mount Leinster, County Carlow by police, who believe the RIRA were trying to derail the peace process with a bomb attack.
[71][72] The IMC's October 2006 report stated that the RIRA remains "active and dangerous" and that it seeks to "sustain its position as a terrorist organisation".
[73] On 8 November 2007, two RIRA members shot an off-duty PSNI officer as he sat in his car on Bishop Street in Derry, causing injuries to his face and arm.
[74][75] On 7 February 2008, the RIRA stated that, after experiencing a three-year period of reorganisation, it intended to "go back to war" by launching a new offensive against "legitimate targets".
[84] In early November, the Independent Monitoring Commission released a report stating that the threat from the RIRA and other dissident republicans was at its most serious level since the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.
[85] When drug dealer Sean Winters was shot dead in Portmarnock, north Dublin, in September 2010, the Real IRA "emerged as the chief suspects".
[88] A large Real IRA explosives dump and arms cache were discovered in Dunleer, County Louth by Gardaí in October 2010, following a weekend of searches and arrests in the east of the country.
[89] In addition, two Real IRA men were charged in Dublin's non-jury Special Criminal Court of membership of an illegal organisation.
[citation needed] The Real IRA claimed responsibility for kidnapping and shooting dead of one of their members, Kieran Doherty, for alleged drug dealing.
[91] In 2011 Michael Campbell, brother of Liam, was found guilty in Vilnius, Lithuania, of trying to purchase arms and explosives[92] and was sentenced to twelve years in prison.
In June 2005, the organisation was believed to have a maximum of about 150 members, according to a statement by the Irish Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Michael McDowell.
[111] According to the police in Northern Ireland, the main sources of the Real IRA's funding are illegal fuel operations and various smuggling activities.
[6]: 183 [7] In 1999, the organisation supplemented its equipment by importing arms from Croatia, including military explosive TM500, CZ Model 25 submachine guns, modified AK-47 assault rifles with a folding stock, and RPG-18 and RPG-22 rocket launchers[22]: 382, 440 but a July 2000 attempt to smuggle a second consignment of arms was foiled by Croatian police, who seized seven RPG-18s, AK-47 assault rifles, detonators, ammunition, and twenty packs of TM500.
Three men from County Louth were arrested and extradited to the UK and subsequently imprisoned for 30 years each after pleading guilty to conspiring to cause explosions and other charges.
The RIRA had attempted to procure arms from France including Semtex and C-4 plastic explosives, SA-7 surface-to-air missiles, AK-47s, rocket launchers, heavy machine guns, sniper rifles, pistols with silencers, anti-tank weapons and detonators.
