Man arrested in Sligo charged in relation to organised crime
A 25-year-old man appeared at Loughrea District Court yesterday charged in connection with an ongoing investigation into organised crime in the Sligo/Leitrim area and the west of Ireland.
Gardaí arrested the man in the Sligo area on Wednesday morning.
Brian Cummins, Balgaddy Road, Tuam, Co Galway, was remanded in custody after he appeared before Loughrea District Court sitting in Ballinasloe, Co Galway.
Mr Cummins is facing money laundering and criminal damage charges and he has also been charged under Section 72 of the Criminal Justice Act 2006.
It is alleged that on a date unknown between August 1st, 2019, and October 18th, 2019, Mr Cummins with the knowledge of the existence of a criminal organisation, and with the intention of enhancing the ability of the said criminal organisation, or any of its members, to commit a crime or serious offence participated in or contributed to activities connected with the said offence contrary to Section 72 Criminal Justice Act 2006.
The alleged offence in this charge is criminal damage to a property in Tuam on an unknown date in 2019.
The money laundering offence concerns the alleged transfer of €1,000 at a location in Tuam on November 6, 2019.
Evidence of arrest, charge and caution was given by Detective Garda Eamon McDonnell of Sligo Garda Station.
Mr Cummins was remanded in custody to appear before Tuam District Court on September 13 next. Gardai said in court yesterday morning, Wednesday, that ten people have been arrested as part of this investigation.
Mr Cummins is the second man to be charged in relation to the investigation by gardaí based in the Sligo/ Leitrim division and more arrests are expected in the long running probe.
A NEW book is being published on September 20 that remembers Sligo’s Noble Six – the six IRA men killed on the mountains north of Sligo town on the 20th September 1922, during the height of the Civil War. The book - The Six: The Lives and Memorialisation of Sligo’s Noble Six is written by archaeologists Dr James Bonsall, Dr Marion Dowd and Robert Mulraney, the same team that investigated Tormore Cave, the Civil War hideout at Glencar earlier this year.
‘The two projects are linked’ says lead author James Bonsall. ‘We were aware of the strong association between the cave and the Noble Six. In September 1922, the National Army closed in on the anti-Treaty IRA headquarters at Rahelly House, north of Sligo town. After intense action, approximately 60 Republicans evacuated the house, making for the iconic mountain of Benbulben, with the intention of crossing the uplands to reach the safety of Tormore Cave – better known as the ‘Glencar hideout’. Several IRA men were captured on the mountains and imprisoned by the National
Army. Sligo’s Noble Six didn’t make it to the cave, they were shot and killed at two different locations in the uplands. The cave hideout has become synonymous with the Noble Six, though they never actually reached their destination that fateful day.’
The six men - Divisional Adjutant Brian MacNeill from Dublin, Brigadier Seamus Devins from Grange, Captain Harry Benson from Ballysadare, and Lieutenant Patrick Carroll, Volunteer Joseph Banks, and Volunteer Thomas Langan all from Sligo town - became known as Sligo’s Noble Six in the years that followed. ‘The Noble Six are very well known to the people of Sligo town and county, but mostly in terms of how they died.’ The Six tells the individual stories of each of the six men, based on archives and unpublished documents from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; primary witness interviews conducted in the 1970s and 1980s; and new interviews with descendants of the Noble Six and descendants of their friends.