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As of 9 May 2026, the Omagh Bombing Inquiry is considering whether the 1998 attack that killed 29 people in County Tyrone was planned and carried out as a “joint enterprise” between the Real IRA and the Continuity IRA. Lead counsel Paul Greaney KC has told the Belfast tribunal that both dissident republican groups may have shared organisational responsibility for the bombing, a theory the inquiry will now test in detail.
The hearings, chaired by Lord Turnbull, have resumed after a six-month delay. This latest phase is focused on the period before and after the explosion, and on identifying who was involved and how the attack was executed. Last year, the inquiry heard personal statements from those directly affected by the atrocity.
The inquiry itself was established by the previous UK government to determine whether the authorities could have prevented the attack. On 15 August 1998, a car bomb detonated in Omagh, killing 29 people, including a woman who was pregnant with twins. It remains the worst single incident of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
Mr Greaney said the claims of responsibility made after the bombing, which were passed to journalists at RTÉ and the Irish News, were consistent with other evidence pointing to the Real IRA. But he stressed that this was “the start, not the end” of the inquiry’s work.
The tribunal then heard about reports from David Rupert, an informant for the FBI and MI5. Mr Greaney said Rupert was told by Michael McKevitt, the Real IRA leader later found civilly liable for the bombing, that the attack was a “joint operation” also involving the Continuity IRA.
“The working hypothesis to be considered in more detail,” Mr Greaney said, “is that, at an organisational level, both the Real IRA and the Continuity IRA planned and carried out the Omagh bombing.”
Joint enterprise, in this context, is not a formal criminal charge but an investigative test. It asks whether two organisations shared a common plan and whether responsibility can be attributed to both. If the evidence supports the hypothesis, the inquiry’s final conclusions could extend beyond the Real IRA and include the Continuity IRA at an organisational level.
Mr Greaney described the plot as the work of “experienced terrorists” who were highly motivated to avoid capture. He said the dissident republicans involved had already been engaged in a violent campaign for months before the attack.
Telecommunications will be central to this stage of the inquiry, particularly the way the suspects communicated using mobile phones. According to Mr Greaney, by 12 August 1998 at the latest, a plan was already in place to steal a specific type of car for use in the bombing: a Vauxhall Cavalier.
The car was stolen from Carrickmacross, County Monaghan, in the early hours of 13 August 1998. Three other Vauxhall Cavaliers on the same street or nearby were also interfered with that night, suggesting the operation had been carried out “effectively to order”. The vehicle was then moved quickly to Dundalk, a border town described by the inquiry’s legal team as the home base for many key individuals in the plot.
The inquiry was told that the car was made available to Seamus Daly, who was previously found civilly liable for the bombing, “ready to be loaded with a bomb”. False number plates were quickly fitted to the stolen vehicle. Mr Greaney explained that cloned plates were commonly used in dissident republican attacks during the late 1990s.
He said the tactic was part of the group’s terrorist tradecraft. A cloned plate taken from a legitimate vehicle of a similar make, model and appearance made it less likely that police checks would reveal the car was stolen. Those transporting bombs wanted to draw as little attention as possible.
Colm Murphy, who died in 2023 and was previously found civilly liable in a separate action, was identified by Mr Greaney as a central figure in the conspiracy. “The evidence suggests that Colm Murphy sat like a spider at the centre of the web of the plan to detonate a bomb in Omagh,” he said.
The inquiry also heard there were “sound reasons” to believe that Daly was in a scout car that led the bomb into Omagh, and that Seamus McKenna, who is now dead, was in the vehicle containing the device. Two cars were used for practical reasons: the scout car provided the means to escape quickly after the attack.
Before the hearing resumed, Michael Gallagher, whose son Aiden was killed in the attack, said families wanted to learn precisely what happened in the final days before Omagh. “I think it is important that we do get into the nitty gritty of what happened in the lead-up to Omagh, particularly in the last few days,” he said.
Gallagher added that this would be difficult but hugely important. He noted that the bombing was a cross-border crime and that most of the evidential opportunities lie within the Republic of Ireland. He welcomed the fact that the Gardaí are engaging and co-operating with the inquiry, and said the families hoped the process would deliver “truth and dignity”.
Claire Hayes, whose brother Alan Radford was killed by the bomb, said the hearings had been a long time coming. She described this phase as a pivotal point in the inquiry and highlighted the lack of engagement from the south of Ireland over the past 28 years. “I want them to pass on all the knowledge they have,” she said.
A pre-recorded witness statement from a senior Garda officer about the theft of the car used in the attack is expected to be heard by the inquiry in the coming days. The tribunal is continuing its work, and the joint enterprise hypothesis will be examined in greater detail as the evidence unfolds.
