Real IRA leader's grand plan for a new powerful republican movement fails

REAL IRA leader Michael McKevitt desperately wanted to create a new powerful republican movement by forging closer links with the other dissident republican organisation still bent on pursuing the "war."

Yet it was only after his arrest that they began co-operating on a regular basis.

McKevitt's plan foundered on the fact that the leading strategist and most influential member of the Continuity IRA personally disliked the Dundalk man. "When you had McKevitt in charge, there was a big difference. He and the CIRA never got on. Now the interaction between the two groups is becoming more and more prominent every day," said one garda source.