Dubliner jailed for four years for Real IRA membership

A Dublin man was jailed for four years by the Special Criminal Court today for membership of the Real IRA.

Robert Brennan, aged 33, of Sillogue Road, Ballymun, Dublin was found guilty on Tuesday of membership of an illegal organisation styling itself the Irish Republican Army, otherwise Oglaigh na hEireann, otherwise the IRA on July 29 last year.

He was also convicted of the unlawful possession of a stun gun at the Neptune Beach Hotel, Bettystown, Co Meath on the same date. He had denied the charges.

The court heard during a two day trial that Brennan was one of four men arrested after an operation by the Special Detective Unit and members of the Crime and Security Branch directed against the Real IRA.

He was seen by detectives carrying a hold all bag into the Neptune Beach Hotel.

When detectives raided a room in the hotel they found a stun gun in the bag. Brennan and three other men were arrested during the garda operation.

Detective Inspector Diarmuid O' Sullivan said that Brennan was a member of the Real IRA since its formation by former members of the Provisional IRA who left the organisation after an IRA Army Convention in Co Donegal in 1997.

He said that Brennan's presence at the Neptune Beach Hotel was for the purpose of ``enhancing the operation'' of the Real IRA.

Today Mr Justice Robert Barr, presiding, said:``The court has no doubt that the so called Real IRA are intent on destroying by violent means major political, economic and social progress which has been painstakingly achieved in Northern Ireland.''

The judge said the court accepted that the Real IRA is a dissident group of terrorists most of whom broke away from the Provisional IRA in 1997.

The Provisional IRA had supported the Good Friday Agreement which set up new political and social structures in Northern Ireland and which had been voted on and backed by referendums in Northern Ireland and the Republic.

``The Real IRA are violently opposed to the will of the people of Ireland so expressed and have sought to wreck the agreement by violent means,'' the judge said.

"The court also accepted that the Real IRA had been involved in up to 80 paramilitary attacks involving firearms and explosives inside and outside the State since October 1999."

The court jailed Brennan for four years for the membership charge and gave him a concurrent three years sentence for possession of the stun gun.