THIS YEAR is set to be a pivotal one in Irish organised crime, with the Real IRA and some of Dublin's biggest drugs mobs set to fight it out for the control of gangland.

After a year of massive shocks and huge changes following the murder of some of gangland's most influential players, never before has there been so much up for grabs.

With the prize of control of the capital's lucrative drugs trade at stake, there is little doubt that the next 12 months will see further bloodshed.

For years, a status quo existed where gangs dealt drugs, made lots of money and reluctantly handed a small percentage over to republican groups - be it the IRA, Real IRA (RIRA) or Continuity IRA (ClRA) - as a form of 'protection'.

The rise of the Dublin brigade of the Real IRA over the last three years started to change all that,though.
Business was traditionally conducted in a cordial enough manner, as both criminals and dissidents realised they were involved in a long-running game.

However, the emergence of Alan Ryan as the head of the Real IRA in the capital changed the rules fOT good.
He refused to play nice with drug dealers and instead of taking a few hundred euro from a mob each month, he started to demand a few thousand.

Ryan would take 40 per cent of the proceeds for himself and send the remainder up to the Northern leader-ship.
If a criminal wouldn't pay, he was threatened. If he still refused to cough up, he was either beaten or had a finger chopped off. If that didn't convince him, then he was murdered.

Violence

It wasn't just criminals, however, that Ryan went for. He also put the CIRA and former senior Provos out of business by issuing threats and generally terrorising them.
The amount of violence inflicted by Ryan and his cronies caused huge unease among the gangs and his murder at the hands of a criminal from Clontarf in Dublin last September caused shock waves that will continue to be felt this year.

In the weeks after Ryan's murder, things went back to the way they had always been.
His replacements were not feared by Dublin's biggest gangsters and they were told where to go when they demanded the same protection money the feared Ryan had been paid.

When the Northern command of the RIRA began to see the money dry up, they came down to Dublin to restore order in the terror group and impose their own choice to replace Ryan. This has led to a serious internal power struggle within the RIRA, but it is expected that the group's Lurgan-based commander Colin Duffy will win the day and he is said to be preparing to take on Dublin dealers in a bid to get them paying protection money once again.

His first salvo was ordering the murder of gangland godfather Eamon Kelly last month.The 65-year-old was an underworld patron and father figure who kept order in gang-land.He refereed in disputes and generally stopped rows between rival mobs spilling out of control.

His murder was highly symbolic and sent out the message that the Real IRA was still a major force and was not to be messed with.Gardai have received reports that Duffy's cohorts have been doing the rounds across the city, demanding the same amount in 'protection' that was paid to Alan Ryan each week.

This is set to force the hand of the criminals who, sources say, will not pay under any circumstances. It's a negotiating stance they are going to have to back up with force.

Eamon Kelly was a hugely connected man and sat on the so-called 'crime council' with Christy Kinahan that ruled on disputes and sanctioned murders and other serious acts of crime.

This means that there is a long queue of Kelly loyalists who will be looking to protect themselves against the Real IRA and make sure that they will not follow their godfather to an early grave.

Christy Kinahan was Kelly's biggest ally.

He controls a network of criminals across the capital and will be at the forefront of hostilities against the Real IRA.

So too will be Dessie 'the Border Fox' O'Hare, the feared psychopath who carried Kelly's coffin and gave an emotional oration from the altar at his funeral.

The drug dealer who organised Alan Ryan's murder has no choice but to take on the Real IRA. There is a contract on his head and he will have to come out of the shadows in 2013 and take on the dissidents.

Some gardai believe that the re-emergence of 'Fat' Freddie Thompson before Christmas was significant.
It was known that he was in Dublin to collect drugs money on behalf of Kinahan, but he may also have been putting plans in place to deal with the RIRA.

Thompson himself was threatened by Ryan and is known to have a hatred for the Real IRA, thinking that they take protection money from one set of criminals, while associating with others.

If the criminals succeed in forcing Colin Duffy and his cronies back up North, they will have dealt the Real IRA a fatal blow and ensured that the terror group will be forever left weakened.

Havoc

Never more will gangland figures have to pay the movement and the criminals will not have to worry about the next Alan Ryan wreaking havoc on their bottom line, not to mention their lives.

This will hinge on them actually uniting,which will be more difficult because of Eamon Kelly's murder.

He was the glue that held many gangs together and there is nobody obvious to step into his shoes and act as a liaison between the different gangs and ensure they keep a united front.

So there is no doubt there is a motley crew of very serious criminals who would more than give the Real IRA a run for their money. All-out war seems inevitable. The only question is, which side will strike first?