Queen visit: Ireland’s largest ever security operation
As a homemade bomb and a hoax device are found ahead of the royal visit to Dublin, we look at the massive £26m security operation to protect the Queen.
The Irish army blew up a homemade device, thought to be a pipe bomb, in a controlled detonation after it was found yesterday evening on a bus bound for Dublin.
Patrick Mercer, MP for Newark and former Army officer who served in Northern Ireland and Bosnia, commented: “If it was a pipe bomb it is almost certainly a device from the Real IRA. Catholic groups tend to make bombs using bits of scaffolding while Protestant groups make bombs that look like grenades.”
A second hoax device was also found at a tram station in north Dublin shortly after the bus bomb was discovered, the Irish army said.
“It was a hoax, a device trying to imitate a viable device,” according to army spokesman Pat O’Connor.
Threats also forced courthouses to be searched and cleared in Dundalk, Monaghan and Drogheda. No explosive devices were found.
Five hundred troops last night ringed the perimeter of Fortress Baldonnel as the military aerodrome on the edge of the capital went into lockdown for the arrival of the royal flight.
Over 10,000 Gardai police officers and Defence Forces troops have been deployed on full alert to patrol areas of Dublin, Kildare, Tipperary and Cork.
Around 120 Royal Protection officers from the Metropolitan Police are accompanying the Queen, carrying Glock pistols and Heckler & Koch submachine guns.
Her Majesty will be escorted in a bullet-proof fleet of cars to every event, watched over by snipers placed on rooftops surrounding the sites.
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