And it was the timing that proved most significant: the bank was robbed in December 2004, years after the Good Friday Agreement. The IRA no longer needed money to buy weapons. In fact, at the time the robbery happened, the group was giving up its weapons; the decommissioning process overseen by Father Reid was at that point almost complete. For critics of Sinn Féin, the robbery solidified the impression that the IRA had morphed into a mafia organisation.
