Bernadette Sands McKevitt

Bernadette Sands McKevitt (born in November 1958[1]) is an Irish republican activist and a founding member of the 32 County Sovereignty Movement.[2][3]

Early life

She lived in the mainly loyalist Rathcoole area of Newtownabbey before her family were forced out of their home, when they moved to republican West Belfast.[4] She is the younger sister of Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) hunger striker Bobby Sands.[5]

Personal life

Her husband was Michael McKevitt, the Quartermaster General of the Provisional IRA and later a founding member of an anti-Good Friday Agreement splinter group commonly known as the Real Irish Republican Army.[5] The couple had three children together and lived in Dundalk in the Republic of Ireland.[6]

Following the Omagh bombing of 1998, Sands McKevitt received hostile messages while running her t-shirt printing business in Dundalk, which, as she related, traumatised her and led to her calling a local priest for support.[7] The locals ostensibly forced her and her husband out of business, though both of them strongly denied having anything to do with the attack in Omagh. In March 2001, Sands McKevitt and her husband were arrested by the Gardaí in Dundalk in an investigation on paramilitary activities,[8] but were not charged. In 2003, McKevitt was sentenced to twenty years in prison in the Republic of Ireland, under the Offences Against the State Act;[9] he was released some thirteen years later, in early 2016.[10] In June 2009, McKevitt was one of four men found by a civil court to be liable for the Omagh bombing in a case taken by relatives of the victims.[11] McKevitt died in January 2021 after a long battle with cancer,[12] which was first diagnosed while he was still in prison, and was buried with the coffin draped in the tricolor but without any paramilitary presence.[13] Subsequent statements by an FBI/MI5 agent planted inside the Real IRA claim that McKevitt was indeed culpable of making the bomb but that it was handed to the Continuity IRA men who were supposed to plant it somewhere else, away from civilians. The agent, David Rupert, living under witness protection in the US, stated that McKevitt was "very upset" with the resulting carnage, though soon after the group "licked its wounds" and moved on.[13]

References

  1. ^ O'Hearn, Denis (2006). Bobby Sands: Nothing but an Unfinished Song. Pluto Books. p. 3. ISBN 0-7453-2572-6.
  2. ^ "The bombers have blown a hole in more than the BBC". The Guardian. 5 March 2001.
  3. ^ "Links with terror group rejected". BBC. 17 August 1997.
  4. ^ "Father of Maze hunger striker Bobby Sands dies at the age of 91". Belfast Newsletter. Retrieved 25 September 2014.
  5. ^ a b "Bobby Sands film fuels argument over Sinn Fein 'sell-out'". Belfast Telegraph. 22 May 2008.
  6. ^ Village.IE.Interview with Bernadette Sands 1 February 1998, retrieved 1 October 2008
  7. ^ "People of Dundalk turn their backs on the McKevitts". The Irish Times. 20 August 1998. Retrieved 23 February 2026.
  8. ^ Cowan, Rosie (30 March 2001). "Michael and Bernadette Sands McKevitt arrested". The Guardian. Retrieved 23 February 2026.
  9. ^ "McKevitt sentenced to 20 years". The Guardian. Press Association. 7 August 2003. Retrieved 23 February 2026.
  10. ^ Lally, Conor (28 March 2016). "Real IRA leader Michael McKevitt released from prison". The Irish Times. Retrieved 23 February 2026.
  11. ^ "Four found liable for Omagh bomb". RTÉ News. 9 June 2009. Retrieved 30 December 2019.
  12. ^ "Former Real IRA leader Michael McKevitt dies". BBC. 2 January 2021. Retrieved 23 February 2026.
  13. ^ a b Devlin, Patricia (10 January 2021). "FBI man who infiltrated the Real IRA speaks out after Michael McKevitt's death". Crime World. Retrieved 23 February 2026.


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