The arrest of Seamus McGrane came at a precise time in the political process when cooporation between An Garda Síochána and PSNI intelligence units had never been greater.
McGrane, a veteran republican, commanded respect among his associates and fear among those he set his sights on targetting.
His one time close friend and Real IRA founder, Michael McKevitt had been sentenced to 20 years in 2003 for directing terrorism between August 1999 and October 2000. He was released from prison in 2016.
McKevitt's arrest and conviction signalled the beginning of the end for the Real IRA, the organisation responsible for the Omagh bomb, the biggest single loss of life in Northern Ireland's troubled history.
Without his direction that group was infiltrated with informers and a series of splits caused by excessive egos and infighting until it became the much weaker 'New IRA'.
McGrane, a ruthless but cunning operator would have been aware of the limitation of a weaked dissident movement, along with a few key players, including bomb makers and former PIRA life prisoners from Belfast and south Armagh, formed a new group calling itself Oglaigh na hEireann (ONH).
The organisation announced their existence with a statement to this paper in 2009 following by a series of high profile bomb attacks.
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McGrane is only the third person to be convicted of directing terrorism
In 2010 they forced a taxi driver to take a 120lb into Palace Barracks in Holywood, Co Down. The British Army base houses MI5's Northern Ireland headquarters. The bomb exploded in what was seen at the time as a massive breach of security and coup for the fledgling organisation.
They were also responsible for the attempted murder of Catholic police officer Peadar Heffron in 2010 in a booby trap explosion that cost the captain of the PSNI GAA team his leg.
The organisation continued to grow in capacity under McGrane's leadership until a concerted, joint campaign by the intelligence agencies - North and South - to shut the organisation down by effectively 'cutting the head off the snake'.
McGrane was arrested in April 2015 and leading Belfast republican Carl Reilly was arrested in October 2015. The timing of both arrests was key. Reilly is currently on bail pleading not guilty to charges of directing terrorism, his case will be the first time covert surveillance carried out in the Republic will form the principle evidence in a Diplock case in Northern Ireland.
McGrane's conviction spells the end of ONH as an effective armed group and marks a master-stroke by intelligence agencies on both sides of the border.
