Row breaks out at sentencing of dissidents

Scuffles broke out at the Special Criminal Court in Dublin today during the sentencing hearing of two men convicted of membership of an illegal organisation.

A man and a woman were detained by gardaí after the disturbance at the main public entrance to the Green Street courthouse.

Uniformed gardaí and Special Branch detectives quickly moved in after a row developed between supporters of the two men and gardaí operating security at the courthouse entrance.

The disturbance occurred as the three judges at the non jury court were considering the sentences on the two Dublin men who were originally arrested during a Garda investigation into the activities of dissident republicans.

The two men were convicted last July after a trial at the court and today one was jailed for six years and one for four years for membership.

Adrian Kirwan (aged 27), a native of Ballymun in Dublin, with an address at Ardilaun Green, Ballymahon Road, Mullingar, Co. Westmeath, was convicted of membership of an illegal organisation styling itself the Irish Republican Army, otherwise Oglaigh na hEireann, otherwise the IRA on December 5, 2004. Kirwan was jailed for four years.

Sean Connolly (aged 27), of Bernard Curtis House, Bluebell, Dublin was also convicted of the same charge on December 14, 2004 and he was jailed for six years.

Mr Justice Paul Butler, presiding, said the court had to take into account the fact that Connolly was jailed for four years by the Special Criminal Court in 2001 for firearms offences.

The court accepted the opinion evidence of Detective Chief Superintendent Philip Kelly that Kirwan and Connolly were members of an unlawful organisation and this view was corroborated by other evidence.

During the trial the court heard that gardaí conducting a major surveillance operation against a dissident terrorist organisation stopped a car on the N4 outside Mullingar and arrested Kirwan.

Connolly was arrested in Dublin later the same month.