1. ‘One of the [Real IRA members] who brought the bomb to Omagh on the day was a [State] agent.
Twenty-nine people, including a woman pregnant with twins, perished in the Real IRA bombing of Omagh, County Tyrone, on 15 August 1998.
Norman Baxter, the retired Chief Superintendent who led the Omagh investigation, made a startling revelation on 12 November 2026 when he told the Omagh Inquiry that he believes a covert agent was involved in the bombing:
‘I believe, just for total clarity, that one of the people who brought the bomb to Omagh on the day was an agent.’
Baxter knows what he is talking about. He was the senior investigating officer into the massacre. He led the investigation from May 2002 until he retired in November 2008.
He described the agent as ‘a covert human intelligence source’.
The agent was run jointly by the gardai and MI5.
Baxter believes information about the bombing was ‘deliberately hidden’ from the investigation, which ‘prevented’ people involved from being detected.
‘After the bomb exploded the chief constable [of the RUC] said no stone would be left unturned and I’m sure he genuinely believed that … the problem was that people had hid some of the stones. So the investigators couldn’t find the stones to look under.’
The cover- up was conducted knowingly:
‘Not accidentally, deliberately hidden to prevent the investigators finding out.
‘And at an organisational level, there was a failure to ensure that all the stones that were to be unturned, were still – you know – available to be looked at.’
2. Norman Baxter on political dirty tricks.
Norman Baxter was the Operational Director of Intelligence at the PSNI Special Branch. It is reasonable to assume Baxter is referring to an MI5 agent.
This is not the first time he has alerted the public to wrongdoing he witnessed during his career. He gave a remarkable interview to Mandy McAuley of BBC NI’s Spotlight after Jeffrey Donaldson’s conviction. He explained that the government, i.e. MI5, guided figures like Jeffrey Donaldson, who had compromised backgrounds, in the direction it wanted politics to go. Baxter told Spotlight:
‘Well, I’d be convinced that the Northern Ireland Office or an element of the government would have known of that behaviour [Donaldson’s sexual activities] because it’s their role to know. Part of managing the peace process is to understand the political actors – to profile and to understand where there is political leverage, and then you apply mechanisms to guide them to where you want the political position to be. I mean, the government would have been failing in their responsibility not to deep-dive into the activities of MPs or other politicians.‘ (Broadcast by Spotlight 26 June 2026.)
3. Deflecting attention from MI5’s bomb courier in the Real IRA.
Lord Turnbull chairs the Omagh Inquiry. It is tasked with determining whether the atrocity could have been prevented.
The Real IRA carried out the Omagh bombing. It was formed in 1997 after the Provisional IRA declared a ceasefire. The Omagh massacre was so unpopular among Republicans that it destroyed the Real IRA.
The Continuity IRA was not involved in the Omagh attack. It was made up of dissident Provisionals led by Ruari Ó Brádaigh, Des Long, Dathai O’Connail and others who left the Provisionals in 1986 after the Provisional Republican movement dropped abstentionism.
MI5 has pursued a ham-fisted propaganda campaign to portray Omagh as a joint operation between the Real IRA (RIRA) and the Continuity IRA (CIRA) for decades.
The purpose of the propaganda operation was to heap some of the mountain of opprobrium that was smothering the Real IRA (RIRA) onto the Continuity IRA (CIRA).
The presence of the MI5 agent inside the Real IRA, the one highlighted by Norman Baxter, reveals a second motive for the propaganda operation: If people believe the CIRA was involved, it would allow MI5 to mislead the media, researchers, academics, historians, surviving victims and relatives of the deceased about MI5’s penetration of the RIRA and likely foreknowledge of the Omagh operation. Instead of looking at the RIRA through a clean lens, interested parties were deflected towards the CIRA.
A more senior MI5 agent within the RIRA spearheaded the deflection, one who sat on its Army Council and was close to its chief-of-staff.
4. Rupert the Spy.
The plan to portray Omagh as a joint operation between the Real IRA (RIRA) and the Continuity IRA (CIRA) was made possible by the lies of David Rupert, an FBI-MI5 spy.
Rupert is a former bankrupt with a decidedly dodgy financial past. His wife describes him as ‘coin operated’. He made approximately $1.25m as a spy.
5. Rupert and Des Long.
Rupert began his career as an MI5 spy in 1994 by circling a number of people involved in the CIRA. He failed to penetrate the CIRA itself.
Des Long, a senior figure in the CIRA and its political wing, Republican Sinn Féin (RSF), kept Rupert at arm’s length. Long, one of the most important Republicans to emerge during the Troubles, was an exceptionally experienced intelligence operative. He was wary of Rupert from the moment he first saw him.
Long’s suspicions were confirmed by his network of contacts in the US.
Long made sure Rupert was not permitted into the RSF Ard Fheis in 1997. That was enough to blackball Rupert within the CIRA.
6. Rupert and Michael McKevitt
MI5 and Rupert trained their sights on the RIRA, where they enjoyed spectacular success.
In 1999, Michael McKevitt, leader of the RIRA, opened his organisation’s innermost doors to Rupert.
Rupert oiled the hinges of those doors with a donation of $10,000. Incredibly, Rupert soon sat in on RIRA Army Council meetings.
The fact that Rupert was so emphatically rebuffed by Des Long and the CIRA, yet parachuted onto the RIRA Army Council, demonstrates the chasm between the CIRA and the RIRA. Yet, according to Rupert, we are to believe they were joined at the hip.
Moreover, Rupert would have us believe that, although the wily Des Long pushed him away from the CIRA, he and Long somehow became trusted partners. Rupert would claim from the witness box at the trial of Michael McKevitt that he spent the day of the bombing in the company of Des Long in Omagh.
Rupert used his entirely fictitious relationship with Long to implicate Long, and therefore, the CIRA in the atrocity.
Unfortunately for MI5, Long had an alibi which demolished Rupert’s account. Ironically, Long was able to rely on officers of Garda Special Branch for an alibi for his whereabouts on the day of the attack on Omagh.
Long’s sister-in-law had been rushed to the regional hospital in Limerick on the Saturday of the Omagh atrocity. She passed away at about 7 p.m. Long remained at the hospital for most of the day. He spoke with numerous staff members during that time. The Long family returned home that night and, in the early hours of Sunday, a Special Branch detective sergeant and a colleague called to question him about his recent whereabouts. Long explained he had been at the hospital, something the Special Branch officers were able to investigate.
Later that Sunday morning, at 9 a.m., Long rang Republican veteran Ruari Ó Brádaigh from his home phone to discuss Omagh. Long’s phone line was one of many the gardaí monitored, as was Ó Brádaigh’s. Hence, the gardaí had intercept logs and transcripts of Long’s movements and actions in the aftermath of the atrocity.
Long offered to put the record straight about his whereabouts on the weekend of the bombing by refuting the perjury of Rupert at Michael McKevitt’s trial, but he was not called as a witness.
7. Rupert changes his story about whom he was with on the day of the bombing, and also about his whereabouts.
Since the trial of McKevitt, Rupert has told journalists another story – that he was mountain climbing with his wife and that he fled Ireland for London immediately after the bombing, not that he was in Omagh with Long.
It is most unfortunate for the Omagh inquiry that an FBI-MI5 spy who sat on the Army Council of the RIRA has sacrificed his credibility to advance a black propaganda operation. If he had stuck to the truth, the families of the 31 people who died might have had some hope of discovering what really happened.
Despite Rupert’s lies, spin, and perjury, Norman Baxter may have opened the door for the truth about Omagh to slip out: MI5 must have known about the plan to bomb in advance and let it happen.
David Rupert has said he is prepared to testify at the Omagh Inquiry.
The case of David Rupert is one of the topics which is addressed in Des Long’s forthcoming autobiography, ‘In the Blood‘, due for publication in 2027.
8. Paddy Dixon of the Real IRA.
Paddy Dixon procured cars for the Real IRA to transport bombs. Therefore, he must also have known about the plot to bomb Omagh.
Is Dixon the MI5 agent inside the RIRA about whom Norman Baxter testified on 12 November 2026?
It would appear not.
Recall that Baxter said, ‘that one of the people who brought the bomb to Omagh on the day was an agent’. Dixon acquired cars for the RIRA. Dixon did not drive the vehicle to Omagh on the day of the attack.
If this is correct, it means there were at least three active MI5 agents inside the RIRA on the day of the massacre. To recap, they were: {i} David Rupert, who sat on the RIRA Army Council and was close to Michael McKevitt, the chief of staff of the RIRA; {ii} Paddy Dixon, who appears to have acquired the bomb car; and {iii} the third individual about whom Norman Baxter spoke. Baxter believed he was primarily a Garda asset who was shared with MI5.
In addition, there was ‘The Man with the Limp’, another state agent. He now resides in England under police protection. He will be discussed in the section on the 1987 bombing of Enniskillen.
There may have been more agents.
Against this backdrop, it is very difficult to believe MI5 did not know about the plot against Omagh.
9. Peter Keeley and Patrick ‘Mooch’ Blair.
Deirdre Younge has examined the role of Peter Keeley of the IRA in the events surrounding Omagh.
Keeley, also known as Kevin Fulton, was a British agent who infiltrated the IRA as a double agent, providing MI5 with intelligence while participating in IRA activities. He has faced numerous lawsuits over his actions during this period, including allegations of involvement in paramilitary murders.
Keeley knew Patrick ‘Mooch’ Blair, the man who allegedly made the Omagh bomb. He met him the day before the massacre and says he smelt the ingredients of a bomb on his person.
Keeley himself was an expert bomb maker.
At this time, Keeley was a participating informant in the RUC’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID). Although providing information about Republican dissidents was not normally part of the CID’s remit, Keeley was supplying them with intelligence of this type.
He had allegedly been dropped as an MI5 agent by the time of the Omagh tragedy. The Inquiry will hopefully address and clarify this.
Either way, he passed the information about Mooch Blair to his CID handlers.
See The questions the former RUC will face over the Omagh massacre. MI5 appears undaunted. [WebBook]
10. The worst case scenario.
Assuming Norman Baxter is correct about the MI5 bomb courier, it means that a mass murderer has escaped justice.
David Rupert must have alerted MI5 in advance to what he knew about the plan to attack Omagh.
He has not been sought, arrested, nor charged with the perjury he committed at McKevitr’s trial.
The worst-case scenario is that MI5 and elements of the RUC Special Branch let the atrocity happen to protect their sources and undermine support for dissident IRA groups. This is not to suggest that MI5 had any inkling as to how devastating and appalling the Omagh bombing would turn out to be. They may simply have imagined that it would be a repeat of the Banbridge bombing of August 1998. In August 1998, the IRA bombed Banbridge. They caused extensive damage and injured numerous people but killed no one.
The original RIRA plan for Omagh was to plant the bomb at a different location from where it was eventually left and provide an adequate warning. When the bombers arrived, they discovered that the parking spaces at the intended target were all taken. They moved elsewhere. In a communication breakdown, the unit in Omagh did not alert their comrades about the new locus where they parked the bomb vehicle. They were also not familiar with the street names in Omagh. Confusion abounded. The warning provided by the RIRA before the bomb exploded related to the original target locus. When the warning came through, people were ushered away by brave RUC officers from the original target towards where the driver had actually parked the vehicle containing the car bomb.
Had the RIRA unit abandoned the attack, the RIRA campaign might have gone from strength to strength instead of destroying the organisation.
11. British Intelligence and other bomb atrocities and massacres.
There are compelling grounds to believe that the UVF gang, which bombed McGurk’s bar in 1971, were British agents.
Brigadier Frank Kitson was involved in the propaganda operation after it took place, a deception designed to portray the explosion as an IRA ‘own goal’.
15 people perished.
Kitson’s ‘Private Army’, 1 Para perpetrated Bloody Sunday.
13 people perished.
John Wyman and his colleagues in MI6 were behind the December 1972 bombing of Dublin.
Two CIE employees were murdered.
British agents Robin Jackson and Billy Hanna of the UVF led the Dublin and Monaghan bomb massacres of May 1974.
34 people perished.
see Returning the Serve, the Dublin-Monaghan bombings of 1974. [WebBook]
There are compelling reasons to believe a state agent had advance knowledge of the Enniskillen bombing of 1987.
11 people perished in Enniskillen.
12. The ‘Man with the Limp’, MI5 and the bombing of Enniskillen.
A fourth MI5 agent inside the RIRA was involved in a much earlier massacre, the atrocious bombing of Enniskillen in 1987.
The RIRA did not exist in 1987, but this individual, the ‘Man with the Limp’, was a Provisional who later joined the RIRA.
He remained involved with the RIRA as late as 2000, two years after the bombing of Omagh.
Mario Ledwith, a Times journalist from Enniskillen, produced a six-part podcast, ‘The Poppy Day Bomb’ for The Sunday Times and Times about the Enniskillen bombing. It occurred on 8 November, 1987. The Provisional IRA planted a bomb in the Reading Rooms in Enniskillen on the eve of Remembrance Day commemorations, intending to target UDR soldiers. Instead, they killed a police officer and ten civilians when it exploded the following morning, sparking international outrage. The IRA issued an apology. Danny Morrison, interviewed in the podcast, stated, ‘People probably think if you’re a Republican supporter and if you defend the right of people to wage armed struggle, that you defend everything that they do. You don’t, and you can’t.‘
The podcast’s central focus is Ledwith’s search for a mysterious figure with a limp who was seen carrying a bag in the Reading Rooms the night before the bombing. Although he was a known Republican, they never arrested him. During a later reinvestigation, detectives were barred from interviewing him.
Ledwith reveals that he was involved in a Real IRA bomb plot in 2000. While three other individuals were convicted, he disappeared.
Ledwith tracked down his former wife, who revealed that he had not been in his home the night before the Enniskillen bombing, claiming to have attended a meeting in Donegal. When Ledwith asked if she suspected his involvement in the bombing, she admitted it was ‘the first thing that came into my head’. Ledwith traced him to his home in exile in England, where he doorstepped him, but the man summoned a squad car to usher Ledwith and a colleague away.
Ledwith asked the PSNI if the man ‘was an informer and, if so, when he was recruited, but they wouldn’t comment.’ The implications – if he was an asset in 1987 – are chilling.
David Burke is the author of four books published by Mercier Press.
These books can be purchased here: