IN THE heart of Bandit Country, against a cloudless blue sky,nervous neighbours identified the homestead of three of the chief suspects in the brutal murder of Garda Adrian Donohoe.

The area is a sprawling collection of houses and barns.
We pulled up at one and spotted two young men working in a yard.

We immediately recognised one of the men as one of the five names given to Gardai by PSNI officers within an hour of the brutal execution of Detective Donohoe in Dundalk last month.
The second man was his brother,another of the chief suspects.
However, there was no sign of their sister - the girl that officers believe drove the getaway car out of Dundalk and back to Bandit Country after the shooting.

The elder of the two brothers strode towards us, flanked by two large dogs. He walked directly to the passenger car window, confident and cold.
This man was afraid of no-one. He was steely and comfortable. He was among his own tribe and had nothing to fear from strangers - and certainly not from journalists brandishing nothing more than recording devices.


SaFety

My colleague Nicola Tallant kept her eyes firmly fixed on his brother and alleged accomplice. With his right hand he pulled what we presume was a mobile phone from his pocket and held it to his ear, then another from another pocket.

There was no doubt he was calling for re-enforcements.

Alternating between the phones he seemed agitated and stressed.

I turned to the man who was now standing directly at our car window and said:

"Hi I'm looking , for xxxxx, are you xxxxx? "Yeah I'm xxxxx," he hissed.

"I'm Donal MacIntyre.

We're doing a piece about the shooting of Adrian Donohoe."

He looked anxiously up the road. His apparent youth was shocking to us.

"A couple of people linked to the GAA club are down as suspects and we're just wondering if you knew anything about it, or if you had been talked to by the police?"

With a little grin and glance down the road, he said: "No, I wish to make no comment about that."

"And your sister, has she spoken to the police?" I asked.

"I must make no comment on that," he said, in a practiced manner that suggested that it was not the first time it has crossed his lips.

"And what about your brother?"

"I can make no comment," he said, as he walked away.

Our time was up. Without protection we needed to get out of Bandit Country as quickly as we could.

Just outside Crossmaglen our southern-reg car was picked up by a high-powered dark vehicle. We were being followed, tracked out of south Armagh at breakneck speed.

It is not the first time we have both experienced the odd and law-less society that exists in this region.

There is a rule: You get in and you get the hell out as quickly as you can.

You never enter south Armagh without a full tank of fuel or the fastest car you can handle. You keep your wits about you and you expect to be followed.

A number of years ago, filming a documentary on the murder of Paul Quinn in nearby Culluhanna, we had both been warned to get out of south Armagh on separate occasions. Quinn was murdered by republicans because he had shown disrespect to an IRA elder and his son.

A group of nine men had beaten him to a pulp, broken every major bone in his body and left him to die slowly. His family have never got justice.

Throughout our 48 hours inside Bandit Country this week we were undoubtedly kept under surveillance. We were circled by fast cars, eyeballed and left under no illusion that we were being watched.

Our source was met away from prying eyes and through an intermediary.

The gang leader,who Gardai believe executed Garda Donohoe, was at breaking point we were told.

He was ready to shop his lieutenant to save his own skin, insisting that it was his buddy that had pulled the trigger instead. He was also out of the country lying low.

Criminals cannot be believed - by their very nature they are the self-serving dregs of society - but surely the Church would condemn any attempt by the community to hide Garda killers.

At the parish centre Fr Joe McKeever refused to answer any questions, refused to comment, refused to tell us whether he condemned the shooting of a Garda, a father of two.

"I say what i say from the pulpit.I do not speak to the media, now goodbye," he growled.

At Crossmaglen GAA club, where all five gang members have close connections, the shutters were down. Despite repeated attempts to contact the Club PRO, Tom McKay - even calling to his family home - we received no replies. We knocked, we phoned, we knocked again, but the club did not respond.

We kept a visible presence in the village for hours in the hopes some-one would talk to us. Instead we were greeted by a steely silence.