The Trinity girl, the IRA arms haul and the gangland hit.
Gardai have traced a gun that was recovered from a dissident republican active service unit to a gangland slaying 11 years ago.
The Sunday World can reveal that Garda forensic experts have linked a 9mm semi-automatic pistol seized from dissident republicans last November to the murder of David
McCreevy in Tallaght, Dublin, in 2002.
Trinity College student Ursula Shannon (29), along with John McGreal (36) and 33-year-old John Troy are currently charged before the Special Criminal Court after being found with two handguns and 32 rounds of ammunition in Rahan, Co Offaly, last November.
They were arrested after a failed attempt to get a gun shop owner to open his shop door so the gang could force their way in and nab 250 weapons.
Shannon posed as a pregnant woman in distress in a bid to get the owner to open up but the plot failed and gardai were alerted and the trio were arrested nearby.
The Sunday World understands that McGreal and Troy were arrested by gardai again on Monday in connection with the brutal assassination of McCreevy.
The were quizzed by detectives about the execution of 23 year-old McCreevy, who was gunned down outside his parents’ home in Tallaght, west Dublin, in February 2002.
It can also be revealed that McCreevy was murdered because he was selling heroin for one of the country’s biggest dealers, which was a major embarrassment to the IRA because one of his close relations was a senior Provo.
McCreevy, from Belgard Heights in Tallaght, had been arrested in November 2001 with €100,000 worth of heroin and cannabis. He was one of the prime targets of Operation
Jumbo, which was a major crackdown on the activities of criminal heavyweight Jeffrey Mitchell.
Mitchell was one of the country’s most successful drug dealers and McCreevy was one of his most trusted couriers.
However, the IRA decided that he had to go because he was drawing too much attention on the terror group, as he was openly dealing drugs despite the fact his relation led the Provos’ ‘campaign’ against dealing.
He was warned on several occasions that if he did not distance himself from Mitchell, then he would be murdered.
He refused and it is thought that the officer in command of the Dublin branch of the IRA sanctioned his murder, without informing McCreevy’s relation of his plans.
A professional hitman approached the victim as he left home to go to work and calmly opened fire, shooting him several times in the head and body.
He escaped in a stolen car which was later found burnt out.
Gardai always suspected that the IRA had been responsible but they got a major break in the case when McGreal, Troy and Shannon were arrested in Offaly last November.
The trio have been charged with the unlawful possession of a 9mm Taurus PT92 semi-automatic pistol, a 9mm Walther P5 semi-automatic pistol, a stun gun and the possession of 36 rounds of 9mm ammunition.
McGreal, from Palmer Road in Rush, north County Dublin, and Troy, from Dunard Avenue in Cabra on the capital’s northside, are also charged with membership of the IRA.
The three were released on bail and their trial is expected to go ahead later this year.
McCreevy’s boss, Jeffrey Mitchell, was one of Ireland’s most senior dealers in the early 2000s.
His gang was shipping an estimated 40 kilos of heroin into the country each month and making massive profits.
However, just three months after McCreevy was whacked, justice caught up with Mitchell when he was arrested in the middle of an armed robbery on a jewellery shop.
He was jailed for six years and was seriously injured in prison after being slashed by fellow inmates.
