Gardai in Limerick have seized 15 guns, mostly sawn-off shotguns, and some 1,500 rounds of ammunition since the re-emergence of an inter-drug gang feud in the city last year.
Garda sources say the two gangs involved have access to sophisticated weapons, including sub-machineguns, as some of the ammunition uncovered is 9mm. It is also known that the gangs have powerful handguns, such as Magnum revolvers.
One of the Limerick gangs has links with ex-republican terrorists and has access to sophisticated and lethal under-car bombs.
Another gang, which travels between the Galway area, England and the continent, has assault rifles. One was used in an attack on a house in the Galway city area earlier this year.
This gang is reputed to have established control over much of the drug trade in Manchester and is becoming one of the most significant organised crime groups in England and this State.
It is also heavily involved in usury and extortion among the Travelling community.
In Cork, where Kieran O'Flynn was shot dead on Thursday, there are suspicions that a number of new drug gangs are moving in on the business previously controlled by O'Flynn and his associates.
Gardai now expect there will be retaliatory violence in the city if this "turf war" escalates.
Elsewhere in the State, there is well-established organised crime in the Border area, where there is the added dimension of involvement of dangerous ex-republican terrorists.
Dundalk has had a number of incidents involving arms this year. As a result of one dispute, a group associated with the IRA abducted and shot dead Kieran Smyth (39), from Ravensdale, outside Dundalk, on February 7th.
Serious drug-related attacks have occurred in other provincial towns such as Waterford and Wexford.
However, according to Garda sources, Limerick has the worst problem with organised crime and related violence outside Dublin.
The latest phase of an inter-gang dispute there erupted in September as a result of a fight between two girls in a disco. The girls are from two families who have been feuding on and off for the past 20 years in the town.
The two teenage girls were separated but both agreed they would meet the following day at a field off the town centre.
In this fight, it is reported that one girl bit the other's ear off.
A few days later, women from the family of the girl whose ear was bitten off captured the other girl's mother. She was pinned down and the letter "S" was carved on her face with a knife.
The dispute escalated and each of the feuding families began taking their children to schools in what gardai described as convoys.
During one of these convoys, a man walked up to a car driven by a relative of the girl who lost her ear, pointed a magnum revolver at the back of his head and pulled the trigger. The gun failed to fire and the man ran off.
Following this incident, a fatal attack took place on November 12th, when a gunman walked into a local bar and shot dead Eddie Ryan.
In January, an under-car bomb was planted under another man's car. This device, it is believed, was supplied by former republicans, possibly members of the Irish National Liberation Army. It was described by gardai as well made and lethal.
As well as having guns and explosives, the two gangs have taken to wearing body armour and tend to travel in groups.
In the past year there have been at least 10 gun attacks in Limerick. According to Garda sources both sides in the feud are well armed and there is no intention on either side to end it. The dispute may determine who controls the drugs trade in the Limerick and Shannon area.
One family group has traditionally dominated this trade. However, there are now only 15 principal young men in this extended family while, on the other side, there are around 28 young men.
In an attempt to control the situation in Limerick, Chief Supt Liam Quinn has established a full-time unit of 12 detectives led by an inspector and three sergeants.
The Garda investigations into the feud and the activities of the two gangs, known as Operation Oileann, have had successes. There have been dozens of arrests and arms raids on property in the city and, says Chief Supt Quinn, "we are taking a very strong line".
In Cork, detectives are still trying to establish the motive for the murder of O'Flynn (39), a leading figure in one of the city's longest-established organised crime gangs.
Several members of O'Flynn's gang have been imprisoned in recent years and it is understood that a number of new gangs have sprung up in the city. There have been several drug seizures in the past year by gardai clearly acting on good information. According to Garda sources, there are suspicions that O'Flynn was blamed for passing information about his opponents to the Garda.
However, it is also possible that he was shot dead by the IRA. Earlier this year, the IRA in Cork was detected in an apparent attempt to either kill or seriously injure an English drug-trafficker who has been living in north Co Cork.
Violence associated with the drugs trade in Cork has been a feature of criminal activity in the city since the 1970s. O'Flynn's brother-in-law, Michael Crinnion (35), was shot dead in a public house in the city centre on April 9th, 1995, for failing to pay a debt to the Dublin gang which later murdered journalist Veronica Guerin.
One of the most serious developments in organised drug-related crime outside Dublin in recent years has been the rise of a powerful, highly mobile gang which has established the major drugs supply route to the west.
This group has established links to drug suppliers on the continent. It is heavily involved in the drugs trade in the northeast of England and is reputed to be one of the largest suppliers in Greater Manchester.
The group is tightly knit and, according to Garda sources, very well organised.
This group uses members of both the settled and Travelling community to act as couriers and is said to have built up a huge cash base for its operations.
It is also involved in intimidation and extortion among the Travelling community. To date, there has been little police success against this gang, either here or in England.
Also in the west, gardai suspect that another gang, led by a man living in Co Clare, has expanded its activities from drug importing to the importation on a large scale of counterfeit goods.
According to reports, the gang last year made contact with a major US criminal, previously involved in supplying guns to the IRA, and bought a ship-load of counterfeit clothes and other goods. These are being sold in street markets throughout the State. With the continuation of the peace process in Northern Ireland, it appears that an unusual number of former IRA figures have acquired wealth. Gardai suspect that some have done so illegally.
A number of former terrorist figures in the Border area are at the centre of Garda investigations, including one by the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) into the laundering of huge sums of money - possibly as much as £100 million - in the Border area. One former leading IRA figure is also recently reputed to have bought a home in the Caribbean.
IRA figures also control the cigarette smuggling trade which, next to drugs, is the second most lucrative organised criminal activity in the Republic.
Last October, the IRA shot dead Belfast dissident republican Joe O'Connor, reputedly because he had attempted to move in on this trade.