ARMS finds along the Border in recent weeks would appear to lend an air of unreality to continuing discussion about the "decommissioning" of IRA weapons even in the event of a renewed IRA ceasefire.
The weapons have included anti personnel devices whose only purpose is to kill security force members in Northern Ireland.
A few hundred yards south of the Border with south Armagh, the IRA was preparing horizontal and conventional mortars specifically to attack security force vehicles and bases.
The finds have included one primed Mark 12 horizontal mortar and at least three other similar devices in earlier stages of preparation. This device is copied from a Russian anti tank rocket and was used to kill at least five members of the security forces in the North before the ceasefire in August, 1994.
At the outset of the month long search of land at the Border above Dundalk, gardai found 21 Mark VI mortars of the type used to attack Heathrow Airport in 1993. These mortars had only been manufactured in recent months and were complete with frames for mounting on vehicles.
Timer power units (TPUs) were also being prepared at the LouthArmagh Border, apparently for use in anti personnel bombs and landmines. One of the anti personnel bombs discovered was ready to be placed. The bomb casing was packed with bolts and other shrapnel.
The TPUs were also being made ready, it is believed, for larger landmines of the type used to destroy security force vehicles travelling on rural roads. These landmines have probably been the single most destructive weapon deployed by the IRA against the security forces.
There was no indication that the Provisional IRA had, yet, intended resorting to the use of large car bombs against commercial targets in Northern Ireland. This, it appears, is a tactic which is being used by the republican terrorist group calling itself the Continuity Army Council (CAC).
This group is made up of former IRA figures closely associated with Republican Sinn Fein (RSF). The CAC, in an interview with the American author and academic, J.
Bowyer Bell, earlier this year said it was not organically linked to RSF but supported its policies.
The RSF leadership has been bitterly opposed to the Provisional Sinn Fein leadership. The group led by Mr Ruairi O Bradaigh and the late Daithi O'Conaill, which became RSF, broke away from Sinn Fein at the 1986 ardfheis.
It is highly unlikely that RSF and the Provisional leadership have come to any agreement because of the depth of antagonism which lingered after the split.
However, there are strong suspicions among some gardai that while the Provisional IRA and CAC may be separate organisations, they may have cone to a working relationship and do appear to be operating in each other's "territory" without any serious dispute.
There are strong suspicions, also that Provisional IRA members or former members might be involved with the CAC group.
The CAC bomb defused by a British army bomb disposal squad in Derry on Wednesday and other CAC bombs are understood to bear strong resemblances to early Provisional IRA car bombs. The CAC appears to have access to commercial detonators and Semtex plastic explosive. It makes its own home made explosive from the common fertiliser ammonium nitrate, and sugar.
Security sources in the northwest were particularly concerned at the events in Derry this week.
Both the Provisional IRA and the CAC were involved in mounting attacks in the Derry area in the past week. The Provisionals had prepared the site for a landmine attack on a security force vehicle at Groarty Road, about half a mile from the Donegal border.
After the site, complete with detonating wire and a hide wash discovered during a search by the RUC, both the RUC and the Garda carried out a major but, as yet unsuccessful, search operation on both sides of the Border for the explosives.
Senior gardai point out that the IRA continued to manufacture and test weapons even during the 18 month IRA ceasefire but during that period - no primed, weapons were discovered on either side of the Border.
While Garda sources are still hopeful that a new ceasefire can be brokered, they are concerned that the weapons found at the Border were being prepared in the event of a reverse in negotiations, between republican and British intermediaries.
If the Provisionals renew attacks on security force targets and, particularly on the predominantly Protestant Royal Irish Rangers (RIR), it is almost certain to spark retaliation from the loyalist paramilitaries. Loyalist sources in Belfast have indicated that they, too, are preparing for a possible return to hostilities.
In anticipation of this set of circumstances, both the RUC and Garda are prepared for a serious, if limited, outbreak of violence in the coming months.