and to its participation in the Northern Ireland peace process. He was backed by his partner and fellow Executive member Bernadette Sands McKevitt. The two dissidents were outmanoeuvred by the leadership and were left isolated. The convention backed the pro-ceasefire line, and on 26 October McKevitt and Sands McKevitt resigned from the Executive along with other members. In November 1997 McKevitt and other dissidents held a meeting in a farmhouse in Oldcastle, County Meath, and a new organisation, styling itself Óglaigh na hÉireann, was formed. The organisation attracted disaffected Provisional IRA members from the republican stronghold of South Armagh, as well as Dublin, Belfast, Limerick, Tipperary, County Louth, County Tyrone and County Monaghan. The name "Real IRA" entered common usage when in early 1998 members set up a roadblock in Jonesborough, County Armagh, and told motorists "We're from the IRA. The real IRA". Objectives The RIRA's objective is a united Ireland by forcing the end of British sovereignty over Northern Ireland through the use of physical force. The organisation rejects the Mitchell Principles and the Good Friday Agreement, comparing the latter to the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty which resulted in the partition of Ireland. The organisation aims to uphold an uncompromising form of Irish republicanism and opposes any political settlement that falls short of Irish unity and independence. Bernadette Sands McKevitt, sister of hunger striker Bobby Sands and a founder of the RIRA's political wing, the 32 County Sovereignty Movement, said in an interview that her brother "did not die for cross-border bodies with executive powers. He did not die for nationalists to be equal British citizens within the Northern Ireland state". The RIRA adopted a tactic of bombing town centres to damage the economic infrastructure of Northern Ireland. The organisation also attacks members of the security forces using land mines, home-made mortars and car bombs, and has also targeted England using incendiary devices and car bombs to "spread terror and disruption". Campaign Early campaign The organisation's first action was an attempted bombing in Banbridge, County Down on 7 January 1998. The intention was to explode a car bomb, but this was thwarted when the bomb was defused by security forces. The RIRA continued its campaign in late February with bombings in Moira, County Down and Portadown, County Armagh. On 9 May the organisation announced its existence, in a coded telephone call to Belfast media claiming responsibility for a mortar attack