DESPITE the IRA denial, and apparent uncertainty by the Government over who killed Det Garda Jerry McCabe, there remained no doubt in Garda minds at the weekend that the BRA was responsible.
Armed robberies, of the type attempted at Adare on Friday morning, were carried out by the IRA during the ceasefire in both the Republic and Northern Ireland. Within three months of the ceasefire declaration, the IRA in south Armagh shot dead a postal worker, Mr Frank Kerr, during a raid on the sorting office in Newry, Co Down, in November 1994.
The killing temporarily prevented the early release of the first group of IRA prisoners from Portlaoise Prison. However, within weeks the Government relented and accepted a promise from the IRA that there would be no repeat of the Newry incident.
The killing of six minor drug dealers by the IRA, and two attempted armed robberies by the Limerick IRA unit, held up the release of further IRA prisoners last Christmas, but some members of this group were eventually released.
By last Christmas, the IRA's operation to end its ceasefire and bomb London on February 9th was well advanced.
Some gardai were sceptical about the IRA's intentions throughout the ceasefire. They were aware the IRA was maintaining its organisation on a war footing and that carrying out armed robberies was necessary to fund the organisation. Armed robbery does not constitute a "military operation" in the IRA's mind. It defined its August 1994 ceasefire as a "cessation of military action".
Despite its assurances to the Government that there would be no repeat of the circumstances which led to Frank Kerr's murder, within two months IRA members in Monaghan were responsible for the armed robbery of a local cash and carry.
Early in 1995, the IRA testfired a large "barracks buster" mortar in the hilly country near Scotstown, Co Monaghan. Parts of the device were found later by gardai.
Throughout the ceasefire period the IRA in the Limerick area was kept active. Senior gardai reported that this group was never "stood down" like other units in Northern Ireland, because it was part of its job to look after the large supplies of IRA weapons which are still hidden in the Munster area.
The IRA in this region maintains the bunkers and transports the weapons to way stations in the midlands, where they are collected and transported into Northern Ireland.
Members of the Limerick IRA are linked, in some cases through marriage, to other IRA groups in the midlands and the Border, which helps maintain the tight security in the operation.
As part of its strategy to protect its arms dumps, the IRA infiltrated the Garda in Limerick in the mid-1980s. Denis Kelly, of Mallow, Co Cork, passed through the training process in the force and was stationed in Henry Street station, Limerick, where he spied on Garda activity, tipping off the IRA when gardai were about to mount raids. Kelly was a still a uniformed garda when he was finally detected. He had attempted to join the Special Branch, where he would have had access to vital security information.
The Garda eventually became suspicious after a series of raids failed to turn up any significant IRA weapons hauls.
After his arrest in 1991, the Garda launched a major search operation in the south west region. "Operation Silo", as it was known, uncovered 15 IRA arms bunkers containing an array of weapons between February and May 1992.
These finds included 53,000 rounds of ammunition, 62 magazines, 75 bayonets, 83 shotguns, 66 rifles, 30 rifle parts, 6,817 shotgun cartridges, three RPG7 anti tank rockets, two flareguns, four handguns, one Soviet manufactured DHSK medium machinegun, another .5 general purpose machinegun and 12 detonators.
Kelly was sentenced to five years imprisonment and was one of the IRA prisoners to be freed last year under the Government's early release scheme for IRA members during the ceasefire.
Many of the weapons found were supplied to the IRA by Libya during the 1980s. Tonnes other weapons supplied by Libya, said to be enough to supply an Army battalion, are still believed to be hidden in Munster under the control of the Limerick IRA unit.
Aside from its importance as the protector of the IRA's arsenal, the Munster IRA has been an important "fund raising"
element within the IRA, carrying out between 20 and 30 robberies the past five years and raising many hundreds of thousands of pounds for the organisation. It is not clear if the money it robs is for its own use or is passed on to the rest of the organisation.
The unit around Limerick is almost exclusively responsible for the armed robberies, although its members are engaged in a variety of other activities, including bombings in Britain and attacks on British military targets on the Continent.