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The IRA dissidents who resigned from the mainstream republican movement eventually regrouped in order to set up a new organization, the “Real” IRA. The group includes a number of the IRA's 12-strong “army executive,” who resigned, along with quartermaster-general McKevitt in protest of the official IRA support for the peace process. The dissidents formed a new “army executive,” which was to elect an army council to run the new organization.

It is strongly suspected that the Real IRA is the military wing of the 32 County Sovereignty Committee, lead in part by Bernadette Sands McKevitt, who serves as acting vice president. The Committee, established in December of 1997, strives for the full independence of 26 counties in the Irish Republic and the six counties of Nothern Ireland. Most of the support for the RIRA is thought to be in the Dundalk and Newry area with some support in Dublin.

The group is small in number and has suffered heavy setbacks at the hands of the Irish police. The RIRA recruited up to 30 experienced operators from ranks of the PIRA, mainly in the Republic but also in some areas in North Ireland. In addition, it embarked on a clandestine campaign to enroll younger recruits previously uninvolved in paramilitary activity. Estimates of total membership have varied from about 70 to 175. Some analysts think the most likely figure is about 100.

The leader of the Real IRA group, Michael (Mickey) McKevitt is the former quartermaster-general of the IRA. McKevitt was responsible for arms shipments into Northern Ireland. In addition one of the IRA's former leading bomb-makers has joined the real IRA group. He is suspected of constructing bombs for both his group and the CIRA, which previously had only limited bomb-making skills. Another ex-IRA engineer, who was involved in constructing mortars, also joined the RIRA and is believed to have made the mortars used in attacks on security bases in the spring of 1998.

The RIRA has been linked to a number of bombings; in each instance a car bomb was detonated subsequent to a warning call. British authorities are convinced that Real IRA is responsible for a 500lb car-bomb attack in the town of Bangridge in August 1997. No deaths resulted from any of the earlier bombings. The group has access to quantities of Semtex plastic explosive, detonators and a variety of other bomb-making components, taken from the IRA weapons stock.

The RIRA was responsible for a number of bomb and mortar attacks during 1997 and 1998.

On Saturday August 15 1998 a car bomb packed with 500 lbs. of explosives detonated in the town of Omagh’s popular shopping district. The bombing has been called the single the bloodiest incident in Northern Ireland’s 30-year history of partisan conflict. Twenty-eight people were killed and hundreds injured. The RIRA claimed responsibility for the bombing. Outrage over the attack in both pro-British Protestant and pro-Irish Catholic communities forced the Real IRA to suspend it activities (18 August 1998).

IRA Splinter Groups
U.K., separatists

What groups have split off from the Irish Republican Army?
There are three IRA splinter groups: the Real IRA, the Continuity IRA, and the Irish National Liberation Army. The Real IRA and the Continuity IRA are formally listed as terrorist groups by the State Department. U.S., British, and Irish authorities consider the Real IRA the most dangerous of these groups.

Why did the Real IRA split off from the IRA?
Because of its objections to the Irish peace process. The Real IRA was formed in 1997 by hard-liners who opposed the negotiations being pursued by the IRA and its political wing, Sinn Fein, which culminated in the April 1998 Good Friday accord, a peace pact that renounced violence. By continuing terror activities, the Real IRA hoped to disrupt Northern Ireland’s fragile peace process.

What attacks have IRA splinter groups carried out?

Real IRA car bombing, Omagh,
Northern Ireland, Aug. 1998.
(AP Photo/Paul McErlane)

After a string of smaller incidents, in August 1998, the Real IRA perpetrated the single deadliest incident in decades of political violence in Northern Ireland when it set off a five-hundred-pound car bomb in the Irish town of Omagh, killing 29 people, including a woman eight months pregnant with twins. The Omagh attack was so widely condemned that the Real IRA subsequently declared a cease-fire, but the group resumed terrorist operations early in 2000. It has since been linked to almost 30 attacks in Northern Ireland and six in London, including a failed attempt to blow up a bridge over the Thames River and minor explosions at BBC Television and MI6 intelligence headquarters.

The group that was later established as the Continuity IRA is thought to have carried out a notorious 1987 bombing in the Northern Ireland town of Enniskillen that killed 11 Protestants; experts say the IRA leadership saw the attack as a tactical mistake. Since 1994, the Continuity IRA has conducted sporadic assassinations and bombings, mostly aimed at Protestant targets.

The least active of the splinter groups is the Irish National Liberation Army. Among other actions against Protestant terror groups, its gunmen shot dead a loyalist terrorist leader, Billy Wright, in Northern Ireland’s notorious Maze prison in December 1997. Experts say the group is known as much or more for its participation in the drug trade and other criminal activities as it is for outright terrorism.

How large are these groups?
Experts aren’t sure, but they estimate that there may be as many as 150 active members of the Real IRA, around 100 active members of the Continuity IRA, and perhaps 50 of the Irish National Liberation Army. Each group is small enough to be vulnerable to informers, both from the IRA and from British or Irish security forces.

What weapons do these groups have?
Mostly light arms, often acquired on the East European arms market.

Who founded the Real IRA?
The republican militant Michael (Mickey) McKevitt, who was in charge of the IRA’s armory before he left the group. His common-law wife—also active in republican politics—is the sister of Bobby Sands, the famous IRA activist and member of Parliament who died in prison during a 1981 hunger strike. McKevitt was arrested in March 2001 by Irish authorities and is currently in an Irish jail awaiting trial on terrorism-related charges.