Liam Campbell is an Irish republican from Dundalk, County Louth. He was found liable under civil proceedings for the 1998 Omagh bombing, which killed 29 people.
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Liam Campbell is an Irish republican from Dundalk, County Louth. He was found liable under civil proceedings for the 1998 Omagh bombing, which killed 29 people.
His brother Sean died in December 1975, when a landmine he was preparing for an attack on the British Army exploded prematurely. Another brother, Peter, served 14 years in prison for Provisional Irish Republican Army offenses. Yet another brother, Michael, went on trial in Vilnius, Lithuania, accused of trying to purchase arms and explosives for the Real IRA, [1] was found guilty and sentenced to twelve years in jail, a conviction that was overturned with the defendant acquitted upon the completion of a retrial in 2013, largely due to the defence's argument that Michael was the subject of entrapment, by MI5 agents. [2] [3] [4]
Liam Campbell first came to the attention of the British and Irish security forces in the early 1980s and became the subject of an exclusion order in 1983 barring him from entering Northern Ireland. [5] [6]
Campbell was named by the BBC as one of the perpetrators of the 1998 Omagh bombing in a Panorama documentary. [6] He never faced criminal charges but was found liable for the bombing in a civil trial, along with Michael McKevitt, Colm Murphy and Seamus Daly. [7] The case, brought by relatives of the 29 victims, resulted in an award of combined damages of over £1.5m. [8] He was believed to be a member of the Real IRA army council during the bombing. [9] The damages were never paid.
In May 2004, Campbell was convicted by a court in the Republic of Ireland for membership of the Real IRA and was sentenced to eight years imprisonment. [10] In May 2009, he was arrested following the issue of a European Arrest Warrant at the behest of the Lithuanian authorities, where he was wanted in connection with a gun running plot which saw his brother Michael arrested. Campbell remained in prison for four years and was released in 2013 following the decision of Belfast Recorders Court to deny Campbell's extradition to Lithuania. The court ruled that "[Campbell] was likely to be held in conditions which would be inhuman and degrading." [11] [12] In July 2021, a court in Ireland denied his appeal against extradition to Lithuania for several arms smuggling charges after nearly 12 years of legal battles. [13] In October 2022, the Lithuanian court announced that Campbell was returning home after all charges against him were dropped due to a statute of limitations expiry. [14]
The Real Irish Republican Army, or Real IRA (RIRA), was a dissident Irish republican paramilitary group that aimed to bring about a United Ireland. It was formed in 1997 following a split in the Provisional IRA by dissident members, who rejected the IRA's ceasefire that year. Like the Provisional IRA before it, the Real IRA saw itself as the only rightful successor to the original Irish Republican Army and styled itself as simply "the Irish Republican Army" in English or Óglaigh na hÉireann in Irish. It was an illegal organisation in the Republic of Ireland and designated a proscribed terrorist organisation in the United Kingdom and the United States.
Gerard Adams is an Irish republican politician who was the president of Sinn Féin between 13 November 1983 and 10 February 2018, and served as a Teachta Dála (TD) for Louth from 2011 to 2020. From 1983 to 1992 and from 1997 to 2011, he followed the policy of abstentionism as a Member of Parliament (MP) of the British Parliament for the Belfast West constituency.
The Omagh bombing was a car bombing on 15 August 1998 in the town of Omagh in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. It was carried out by the Real Irish Republican Army, a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) splinter group who opposed the IRA's ceasefire and the Good Friday Agreement, signed earlier in the year. The bombing killed 29 people and injured about 220 others, making it the deadliest incident of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Telephoned warnings which did not specify the location had been sent almost forty minutes beforehand but police inadvertently moved people toward the bomb.
Michael McKevitt was an Irish republican and paramilitary leader. He was the Provisional Irish Republican Army's Quartermaster General. Due to the Provisional IRA's involvement in the Northern Ireland peace process, he formed the Real IRA in protest. His role in the Real IRA led to him being convicted of directing terrorism as the leader of the paramilitary organisation.
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Seamus Daly is an Irish republican from Kilmurray, Castleblayney, County Monaghan. He was charged with being a member of the Real Irish Republican Army (RIRA) in Dublin's Special Criminal Court in 2004, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 3+1⁄2 years in prison.
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Colm Murphy was an Irish republican who was the first person to be convicted in connection with the Omagh bombing, but whose conviction was overturned on appeal. While awaiting a retrial on criminal charges, Murphy was found liable for the bombing in a civil trial, along with Michael McKevitt, Liam Campbell and Seamus Daly. He was subsequently cleared of criminal charges in February 2010.
Nessan Quinlivan, is a former Provisional IRA member who escaped from Brixton Prison in London on 7 July 1991 along with his cellmate Pearse McAuley, while awaiting trial on charges relating to a suspected IRA plot to assassinate a former brewery company chairman, Sir Charles Tidbury.
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This is a timeline of actions by the Irish republican paramilitary groups referred to as the Real Irish Republican Army and New Irish Republican Army. The Real IRA was formed in 1997 by disaffected members of the Provisional IRA. Since July 2012, when Republican Action Against Drugs (RAAD) and other small republican groups merged with it, the group has been called the New IRA; although it continues to call itself simply "the Irish Republican Army".
Public Prosecution Service of Northern Ireland v. Liam Adams was a criminal case relating to allegations of child abuse made in 2009 against Liam Adams, brother of Irish politician Gerry Adams. Liam Adams was found guilty in October 2013 of 10 offences, and was sentenced in November 2013 to 16 years in prison.
The 2010Newry car bombing occurred on the night of 22 February 2010. It exploded outside a courthouse in Newry, County Down, Northern Ireland, damaging the building and others in the area. There were no fatalities or injuries.
Pearse McAuley was a Provisional IRA member, who escaped from Brixton Prison in London on 7 July 1991 along with his cellmate Nessan Quinlivan, while awaiting trial on charges relating to a suspected plot to assassinate former brewery company chairman, Sir Charles Tidbury.
The dissident Irish republican campaign began at the end of the Troubles, a 30-year political conflict in Northern Ireland. Since the Provisional Irish Republican Army called a ceasefire and ended its campaign in 1997, breakaway groups opposed to the ceasefire and to the peace agreements have continued a low-level armed campaign against the security forces in Northern Ireland. The main paramilitaries involved are the Real IRA, Continuity IRA and formerly Óglaigh na hÉireann. They have targeted the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and the British Army in gun and bomb attacks as well as with mortars and rockets. They have also carried out bombings that are meant to cause disruption. However, their campaign has not been as intensive as the Provisional IRA's, and political support for groups such as the Real IRA is "tending towards zero".
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The New Irish Republican Army, or New IRA, is an Irish republican paramilitary group. It is a continuation of the Real Irish Republican Army, which began to be called the 'New IRA' in July 2012 when Republican Action Against Drugs (RAAD) and other small republican militant groups merged with it. The group calls itself simply "the Irish Republican Army". The New IRA has launched many attacks against the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and the British Army. It is the largest and most active of the "dissident republican" paramilitary groups waging a campaign against the British security forces in Northern Ireland.
Events from the year 2023 in Northern Ireland.
Anti-Imperialist Action Ireland or AIA Ireland is an Irish socialist-republican organisation that advocates for the establishment of a socialist state in Ireland through a socialist revolution. The group was founded in 2017. Since then, it has undertaken a number of protest actions across Ireland. The organisation has described itself as "a broad front" opposed to "the UK, the EU, the US and all other forms of Imperialism in Ireland".
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