The suspected Real IRA murder of Eamon Kelly has come despite a period of intense Garda focus on the dissident group based in Dublin. However, while the operation has brought many results, it has not stopped all of the group’s violence.
Just hours before Kelly was killed yesterday, gardaí arrested a 21-year-old suspected member of the Real IRA with a 9mm pistol in Dublin’s north inner city following a surveillance operation.
The weekend before last, a suspected member of the Real IRA was kneecapped in Ballyfermot, west Dublin. The shooting is believed to have been carried out by the organisation in an action against rogue members.
In October, gardaí raided a halting site in north Dublin being used to make pipe bombs for the Real IRA. Just days before that raid, two pipe bombs were left by the Real IRA outside the homes of two criminals in north Dublin, one of which exploded.
Gardaí believe those men are linked to one of the criminal gangs with which the Real IRA in Dublin has been feuding. That dispute is centred on Real IRA extortion demands on drugs gangs and some of their refusal to pay.
Garda sources said the feud was now a “super feud” with the potential to lead to intense violence. Gardaí believe a coalition of gangs being extorted by the Real IRA was behind the shooting dead of Alan Ryan in Clongriffin in September. Ryan was a key Real IRA figure and had personally made some of the demands on the gangs.
