Gardaí in Cork will examine guns found in a suspected dissident republican arms dump to see if they were used in the commission of any crime, including the murder of a senior dissident IRA figure.
Officers recovered an assault rifle and two Glock-style handguns along with full magazines during a search of a forest north east of Cork city.
Gardaí discovered the arms cache when a local garda went to investigate complaints from the local community that people were fly-tipping in the area. While searching the dump area, the officer found the assault rifle buried nearby.
The officer preserved the scene before he was joined by senior officers, the Armed Support Unit, a search dog and members of the Cork County Divisional Search Team.
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The search team found the two handguns buried in two buckets a short distance away and covered with polystyrene foam to protect the weapons from damp and rust.
Gardaí suspect the guns may belong to a Cork-city based Real IRA faction that has been involved in at least one murder and other shootings.
Gardaí say it is too early to say whether the guns were used in any shootings but among the crimes that ballistic experts will be cross-referencing the weapons with is the killing of former Real IRA chief of staff Aidan “the Beast” O’Driscoll (37) in 2016.
O’Driscoll, who was shot dead on the Commons Road in Cork near Blackpool Church on December 7th 2016, had been expelled from the Real IRA for “unrepublican activities” and he was targeted by his former comrades after he began associating with New IRA members in Cork.
Garda sources say the Real IRA remains the dominant dissented republican organisation in Cork, unlike elsewhere in the country where it has been superseded by the rival New IRA, which has grown in numbers and in influence.
The Real IRA faction has about 30 members in Cork and, last March, the grouping was foiled by gardaí in attempts to build an arms hide in a remote forest near Glenville some 10 kilometres from where the guns was found on Thursday.
