Irish police charge second person after explosive device found near border

Irish police said Saturday that they had charged a man in his 40s after an explosive device was found in a vehicle near the border with Northern Ireland earlier in the week. Ireland's police force, the Gardai, said the man was due in court in Dublin late Saturday.

Police said Friday that they had charged the car's driver, 25-year-old law student Isobella Perrie Sullivan, with possession of explosives. Trim District Court heard late Friday that Sullivan, from County Kildare west of Dublin, was stopped on the road and that a bag found in the back of her car contained the plastic explosive Semtex and a detonator. Her lawyer said she had been asked to take a bag north but had not known what was inside it.

Police said officers stopped the car as part of an operation targeting dissident republican activity. They described the discovery as extremely significant.

The report said Northern Ireland was divided by conflict between pro-Irish republicans and pro-UK unionists until the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. The agreement required rival paramilitaries to decommission weapons, but dissident factions remain. The report said dissident republican groups are smaller than the Provisional Irish Republican Army, which ended its violent campaign in 2005, but have used improvised explosive devices and mortars in past attacks. Earlier this year, Northern Irish police blamed dissident republicans for two separate attacks on police stations near Belfast that caused no casualties.