Irish Republican Army

The final British troops withdrew Monday from the Northern Ireland borderland long known as "bandit country," ending a 37-year mission to keep watch over the Irish Republican Army's most dangerous power base. Soldiers left Bessbrook Mill in what their commander, Col. Wayne Harber, called a final act in "the longest military campaign in the army's history." The overall commander of the remaining 5,600 troops in Northern Ireland, Lt. Gen.

The Irish Republican Army's reputed commander appeared in court for the first time and was charged with massive tax evasion. Irish police and prosecutors -- stymied for decades in their efforts to put the alleged terrorism mastermind and suspected fuel smuggler Thomas "Slab" Murphy behind bars -- are now using the same approach that U.S. authorities took to nail Al Capone: following the money trail.

The boys of South Armagh -- real men, "hard men," they call them -- never were ones to bow to anybody. The British army for 30 years was mostly unable to drive in and out of its command here in the rolling green heartland of the Irish Republican Army. Roadside bombs and IRA snipers forced the soldiers into helicopters. And when they pulled out for the last time in August, they got a proper send-off.

More than 300 police officers backed by British and Irish troops mounted dawn raids on the home turf of Thomas "Slab" Murphy, the Irish Republican Army's former chief of staff and reputedly its most successful smuggler. The operation was by far the biggest ever mounted targeting Murphy's farm and fuel distribution business.

A Seal Beach bartender who has charmed patrons with his singing in a thick Irish accent can be deported for his role in the murder of two British soldiers 18 years ago, an immigration appeals board has ruled. The ruling overturns a 2004 decision by an immigration judge who blocked deportation of Sean O'Cealleagh. But the ruling, reached Wednesday by the Board of Immigration Appeals in Virginia, does not mean that O'Cealleagh, an Irish citizen, will be booted out of the country any time soon.

A Seal Beach bartender who charmed patrons by singing Irish ballads was deported Sunday, one month after an immigration appeals court ordered him removed from the United States for his role in the murder of two British soldiers 18 years ago. Sean O'Cealleagh was returned to Ireland aboard a commercial flight under the escort of two federal immigration officers, U.S. officials said.

The Irish Republican Army has disbanded its units that bought and built weapons, stopped training recruits and ceased intelligence gathering, committing itself to a path of peace, says a periodic report made public Wednesday by a panel monitoring peace efforts in Northern Ireland.

The tour buses can barely squeeze down the narrow streets in the neatly rebuilt neighborhood once burned to the ground by a loyalist mob. Visitors climb out and squint at the towering partition that divides the fortified patios of Catholics from the walled-off gardens of Protestants. The Troubles Tours have become a big moneymaker in Belfast.

Irish Republican Army dissidents on Sunday threatened to kill top Sinn Fein politician Martin McGuinness and resume attacks in England as part of their efforts to wreck the IRA cease-fire and power sharing in Northern Ireland. An Easter statement from the outlawed Real IRA sent to Irish news media branded McGuinness a traitor because he holds the top Irish Catholic post in Northern Ireland's government, sharing power with British Protestants.