A Real IRA leader who plotted an explosion during Prince Charles’s State visit in 2015 has died in prison.
Seamus McGrane, 64, died from a suspected heart attack while serving an eleven and a half year prison sentence for directing terrorism.
McGrane, who was also convicted of IRA membership in 2017, was only the second person to be convicted of directing terrorism in the State.
His ally, Michael Mc Kevitt, was jailed for twenty years in 2003 for directing terrorism.
During his trial at the Special Criminal Court in 2017, the court was told that McGrane discussed an operation involving explosives in the run-up to the State visit of Prince Charles in 2015.
McGrane, last of Little Road, Dromiskin, Co Louth was convicted of directing the activities of an unlawful organization, styling itself the Irish Republican Army, otherwise Oglaigh na hEireann, otherwise the IRA, between the dates of April 19th and May 13th, 2015.
He was also convicted of membership of the IRA between January 18th, 2010 and May 13th, 2015.
Sentencing McGrane, presiding judge Ms Justice Isobel Kennedy had said that it was “a most serious offence”.
The court heard evidence from two audio recordings, from April and May 2015, of McGrane speaking with Donal O’Coisdealbha.
The recording referred to a “military operation” of significance and “the main attack”on May 19th, 2015, the date that Prince Charles was due to carry out a State visit.
McGrane instructed Mr O’Coisdealbha that the operation should not be an “embarrassment” and that it was not to occur in Sligo or Galway, where Prince Charles was due to visit.
The target of the attack, the trial was told, was to be the Cross of Sacrifice in Glasnevin cemetery.
McGrane was arrested six days before the planned attack.
