Over the past six months the republican group responsible for the Omagh atrocity in August last year had reassembled itself, recruited new members and begun training them in terrorist techniques.
The man seen as second-in-command of the terrorist group was delivering a talk and a demonstration on firearms use in the cellars of a derelict country house outside Naul, Co Meath on Wednesday night. He was rudely interrupted by smoke grenades and an announcement that there were armed gardai outside.
The 10 people in the cellar quietly gave themselves up. Their arrest was the biggest blow yet to the last group of dissident republicans who have been attempting to destabilise the peace process in the North.
It was only the latest in a series of serious setbacks suffered by the dissidents in recent weeks. Some 26 people have been arrested and firearms and explosives found in at least three locations.
The gardai are moving from location to location around the State where the group has been organising. The Garda action is effectively disrupting and dismantling the organisation before it has a chance to reach a point where it might pose a threat to the peace in the North.
A bomb-making unit set up by the group in Wexford was exposed and some of its store of Semtex explosive and guns was uncovered two weeks ago. Then gardai in Donegal arrested four men who had been trying to form a terrorist cell in the south of the county. Another five men were arrested and two rifles seized in Dublin last weekend.
On Wednesday night members of the Special Branch and the Emergency Response Unit (ERU), the National Surveillance Unit supported by gardai from the Louth/ Meath Division under the direction of Chief Supt Michael Finnegan, struck the heaviest blow yet to the group.
The 10 arrests in Co Meath, including that of one of the leading figures in the group, may prove to be one of the most significant successes against the dissidents.
The fact that all 10 were caught in the cellar with guns and ammunition will be a major embarrassment to the group's leadership, senior gardai pointed out. It will be a deterrent to any other young people who might have considered joining the dissidents. The loss of one of its most senior figures will also be a major blow to the management of the group.
The Garda successes follow a period of intense undercover surveillance and intelligence operations by members of the Special Branch and the National Surveillance Unit.
This was prompted by intelligence reports earlier this year, at a point when the Stormont talks looked close to collapse, which indicated that the dissidents were preparing to carry out acts of violence in the North.
The idea behind the attacks would have been to attract attention to the group - and with this to stimulate support within the wider republican constituency - and to undermine the pro-ceasefire Provisional IRA leadership. This could weaken the position of the Sinn Fein leadership and precipitate a split in the Provisional IRA.
The dissidents have been trying to gain control of the Provisional IRA and its arms dumps in the Republic. In anticipation of this, the Provisionals may have been acquiring new guns in Florida to arm themselves in the event of the dissidents seizing any of its dumps. The new guns would also have given the Provisionals an edge over the dissidents in any armed confrontation or "feud".
The actions of the Garda i in the past two weeks, therefore, might come to be seen as of crucial significance in thwarting an attempt to reintroduce violence into the political equation in the North. Despite the successes of recent weeks, however, no senior security figure North or South, is yet prepared to state that the dissidents are defeated.
It is pointed out that the Garda had considerable success against the dissidents throughout the spring and early summer of last year, when the republicans were again attempting to attack the peace process in the North with bombs made in the South. Gardai intercepted five bombs on their way into Northern Ireland or England in the space of as many months.
However, in response the republicans moved their bombing operations north of the Border to south Armagh - where the Omagh bomb was assembled and driven west to the town. The resulting 29 deaths marked the worst single act of terrorism in the history of militant republicanism.
Despite the opprobrium directed at the group's leadership in the Border area of Co Louth, the intelligence-gathering wings of both the RUC and Garda Siochana reported earlier this year that the dissidents are still intent on relaunching a campaign of violence.
The group, which had previously called itself the "Real" IRA, had rebranded itself as "Oglaigh na hEireann", in an effort to assume the true inheritance of the tradition of militant republicanism. It was also apparently receiving money and moral support from American-Irish figures who had previously supported the Provisional IRA but had grown opposed to its unarmed strategy. It is thought likely that if this support continues, the dissidents will continue trying to reintroduce the gun back into Northern politics.