Seven Irish nationalists were remanded in custody in Northern Ireland yesterday on terrorism charges, in one of the highest profile security roundups in the province in recent years.

The suspects have yet to enter a plea

Four of the suspects, including a 37-year-old woman, were charged with attending a militant training camp and firing range near the town of Omagh.

The other three were relatives of prominent Lurgan nationalist Colin Duffy, who was acquitted this year of charges related to an attack by militant group the Real IRA on the army’s Massereene Barracks in Antrim three years ago.

The suspects have yet to enter a plea.

The Real IRA is one of several groups opposed to the 1998 peace deal that largely ended three decades of tit-for-tat killings between mainly Catholic Irish nationalists opposed to British rule of Northern Ireland, and predominantly Protestant unionists who wanted it to continue.

Sporadic gun and bomb attacks by dissident Irish nationalist groups aimed mainly at security forces have intensified in the past couple of years.

In April, police found a large bomb near the main Dublin-to-Belfast motorway, and a smaller device was found under the car of a policeman’s parents, the latest in a spate of attempted attacks on Catholic officers and their families.

Two brothers and a cousin of Colin Duffy appeared in a court in Lisburn near Belfast yesterday, flanked by a dozen armed police in riot gear, to hear the charges.