{"id":604263,"date":"2026-07-25T23:40:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T23:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/604263\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T23:40:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T23:40:10","slug":"drew-harris-somewhat-shocked-by-monaghan-car-bomb-discovery-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/604263\/","title":{"rendered":"Drew Harris \u2018somewhat shocked\u2019 by Monaghan car bomb discovery \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The discovery of a Semtex car bomb in Co Monaghan shows An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na and the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) were not \u201ccomplacent\u201d in the face of the threat posed by dissident republicans, former Garda commissioner Drew Harris<\/a> has said.<\/p>\n

Speaking at the Patrick MacGill Summer School in Donegal on Saturday, Harris, who retired last September, said the news of the Carrickmacross seizure had left him \u201csomewhat shocked\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cNews like this is always shocking. Thirty years ago, it might have made the inner pages. But now it\u2019s so unusual that genuinely people were very surprised and shocked, taken aback,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

However, the intelligence-led operation by the Garda Special Detective Unit that led to the seizure of the car bomb that was being taken to Derry showed the level of co-operation existing between the Garda and the PSNI.<\/p>\n

\u201cUndoubtedly, major damage or terrible injury, indeed death, has been avoided. So that\u2019s always a positive, and that\u2019s a good thing for us. The longer we can get from this extreme violence, the less that we have of it, then that is a public good,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

On Friday, 25-year-old law student Isobella Perrie Sullivan, of Abbeylands Park, Clane, Co Kildare, was granted bail at a Co Meath court<\/a> hearing where she was charged with possession of explosives.<\/p>\n

In court, a Garda officer outlined how Perrie Sullivan had been stopped by garda\u00ed on the N2 at Aclint, Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan, suspected to be involved \u201cin IRA operational activity\u201d.<\/p>\n

During a search of her vehicle, a bag was discovered in the rear seat that contained Semtex and a detonator, the court heard, prompting the area to be evacuated. <\/p>\n

Another suspect, a man in his 40s, remained in custody at a Garda station in the Dublin area and has since been charged in relation to the investigation, say garda\u00ed.<\/p>\n

He is due to appear before the Special Criminal Court this evening at 8:15pm.<\/p>\n

Garda\u00ed added that investigations are ongoing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The discovery of a Semtex car bomb in Co Monaghan shows An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na and the Police Service…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":604264,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[40],"tags":[6294,367,9,10,206641,68634,68635,205995,1578,80440,3465,59677,255271,81710,1360,255272,86667,18801,18,1015,13,14,6,19,9898,17,11,12,255273,255274,15,16,5,9433,78572,255275,255276,1361,24380,19863,3118,9311,255277,8208,4657,49623,114576,7607,59687,7,8,5986,3566,4319,18820,447],"class_list":["post-604263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-apartment","tag-architecture","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-bridge","tag-building-exterior","tag-built-structure","tag-capital-cities","tag-city","tag-city-life","tag-cityscape","tag-coastline","tag-commercial-dock","tag-commuter","tag-construction","tag-custom-house","tag-dublin-ireland","tag-dusk","tag-eire","tag-europe","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ifsc","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-liberty-hall","tag-liffey-river","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-night","tag-office-building","tag-port-of-dublin","tag-quayside","tag-real-estate","tag-reflection","tag-republic-of-ireland","tag-river","tag-road","tag-scenics","tag-sea","tag-sky","tag-skyline","tag-spire","tag-street","tag-sunset","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-tourism","tag-traffic","tag-travel","tag-urban-scene","tag-water"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=604263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/604264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}