Bomb discovered hidden in Belfast-registered car outside hotel hours before city hosted stage of Giro d'Italia cycle race

This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

A bomb found in a hotel on the western edge of Dublin was destined for a republican dissident attack across the border, it emerged on Monday.

The 50lb device was discovered in a Belfast registered car on Saturday night just hours before the climax of the Ireland stage of the Giro d'Italia cycle race.

The bomb, which was made of fertiliser mix, had been discovered in the hotel car park in Lucan, west Dublin. Hundreds of wedding party guests had to flee the luxury Finnstown Country House Hotel during a follow up security operation.

Dissident republicans are being blamed for leaving the device although it is understood the hotel was not their target.

A Belfast man was later arrested in the Irish capital in connection with the explosive find and is being questioned by Garda detectives.

The suspect was believed to be connected at one time to the hardline Continuity IRA although it is believed he has recently been linked with the new IRA terror alliance.

Under the Irish Republic's anti-terror laws, the Offences Against the State Act, he can be held for up to 72 hours.

The device, which was hidden inside a milk churn, also contained a sophisticated time power unit designed to set off the bomb, which was of a similar type to those used by the Provisional IRA during the Troubles.

Gardai also found other bomb-making material including mercury tilt switches in a follow-up search operation at a property in central Dublin on Sunday.

Irish army bomb disposal experts made the device safe at the scene but hundreds of guest attending a wedding at the hotel had to be evacuated on Saturday evening.

Security sources in Northern Ireland said they believed the bomb was for a target in the region rather than anywhere in the Irish Republic.

Although dissident republicans have been involved in gangland-style warfare with non-political criminal gangs in Dublin, the sources said the seize of the device and the intelligence that led to its interception and later arrest indicated it was being prepared to be transported into Northern Ireland.

•This article was amended on Monday 12 May to correct the size of the bomb. It was a 50lb bomb and not a 500lb, as the article stated earlier