As he sits in his cell on the E wing of the top security prison in Portlaoise that will be his home for at least 17 years, Kevin Braney will have plenty of time to reflect on the day he changed his mind about the peace process and became a dissident.

Braney, who received the mandatory life sentence from the Special Criminal Court yesterday for his conviction of the murder of a former associate, Peter Butterly, was the key figure in the New IRA on this side of the Border and was particularly influential in the ranks of the terrorist organisation in Dublin and Cork.

He was initially a strong supporter of the peace process and remained loyal to Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams as they led the Provisional republican movement to back a ceasefire and a decommissioning of weapons.

Braney (44), from Glenshane Crescent, Tallaght, in south county Dublin, stood by McGuinness despite the formation of a new dissident organisation that became known as the Real IRA.

The split followed a major row at a Provisional IRA convention in Falcarragh, Co Donegal, in October 1997 over the direction to be taken by the movement, resulting in a walkout by several senior figures, including its quartermaster, Michael McKevitt.

As quartermaster McKevitt, was in overall charge of all arms and explosives, and his defection was followed by others, who also joined the Real IRA when he formed it.

However, Braney eventually became disillusioned with the peace process and threw his support behind the dissident group.

His opportunity to rise to the top ranks of the Real IRA came when a group of experienced republicans, including some recently released from prison in Northern Ireland, forged an alliance between the Real IRA, the Republican Action Against Drugs, based mainly in Derry, Strabane and Clady, and other former Provisionals, who had remained unaligned since the ceasefire, partly because they saw how the various dissident groups had been infiltrated by the Garda and the PSNI.

In Dublin the Real IRA, under the control of Alan Ryan, had developed into an undisciplined crew that became immersed in a deadly feud with criminal gangs involved in drug trafficking and extortion.

The Northern leaders began stamping their authority internally through threats and punishment shootings and when it was over Braney was in charge of the Dublin and Cork units.

Among the victims of the infighting was Peter Butterly with Braney playing his part in the planning of the murder.

In the meantime, the alliance had grown into the New IRA, which publicly announced its existence in July 2012 and began a campaign of attacks on what it termed security targets in Northern Ireland.

One of its first targets was prison officer, David Black, who was shot dead as he was driving to work at Maghaberry jail in November 2012.

During the planning of his brutal murder, the New IRA turned to Braney’s terrorist team to supply a car for use by the killers.

The car was purchased in Tallaght and taken to Carrigallen, Co Leitrim, where it was handed over to the Northern based terrorists. Gardai later secured a conviction for IRA membership against Vincent Banks, who had previously been acquitted on a charge of withholding information about the murder of Mr Black, partly on the grounds that there was no evidence he knew the car was to be used in a murder.

Banks used a false name and a wrong address when purchasing the car but gardai identified him as the buyer when they called to the address and found a letter containing the car registration certificate. His right thumb print was on the form.

The New IRA also claimed responsibility for killing prison officer, Adrian Ismay, who died after he was injured in a bomb attack in Belfast in March 2016 while some of its current members are believed to have been involved in the murders of British soldiers, Mark Quinsey and Patrick Azimkar, as they collected a pizza outside Massereene barracks in Antrim town in March 2009.

Current members are also thought to have been behind the murder of Constable Ronan Kerr in an under-car bomb attack in Omagh in Apri 2011.

The PSNI revealed in 2017 that the New IRA had developed a new highly dangerous explosive device.

It involves a pressure plate designed to detonate when a vehicle drives over it.

The device was developed because of the difficult of attaching booby trap bombs to the underside of cars – a method used by dissidents to kill their targets, with the most infamous attack of this type killing British Conservative politician Airey Neave, a close friend of Margaret Thatcher, as he was driving out of the car park at the House of Commons in March 1979. The device was fitted under his seat and detonated by a mercury tilt switch.

However, the use of magnets became more problematic with modern cars using more plastic and the new device has been developed by the New IRA to overcome that difficulty.

It was used by the New IRA in Derry two years ago to target an off-duty police officer. The bomb consists of a box of explosives wrapped in tape and placed under the vehicle with the plate detonator activated when the wheel drives over it.

Explosives intercepted by gardai in Dublin’s north inner city in June 2017 comprised four kilos of commercial TNT, which ballistic experts could have been used to make 30 under vehicle bombs. The seizure saved many lives in Northern Ireland, particularly police and prison officers.

Braney was also chairman of the Dublin branch of Saoradh, a political organisation that came into existence in 2016 with the support of New IRA prisoners in jails on both sides of the Border.

A tribute was paid in a Saoradh newsletter to Michael Barr, who was shot dead in the Sunset House pub in Summerhill, Dublin, during the Kinahan-Hutch feud.

The New IRA has more than 50 activists listed as persons of interest to the Garda security and intelligence section and is estimated to have another 200 supporters.

Its members on this side of the Border are heavily involved in extortion to help finance the purchase of weaponry for use in the North.

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