TEN years ago the leadership of the republican movement, comprising the Provisional IRA and Sinn Fein, changed. The original Provisional leaders, men like Daithi O Conaill, Ruairi O Bridaigh and Sean MacStiofain were replaced by a group of younger, mainly Northern figures like Martin McGuinness, Gerry Adams and Danny Morrison.
At the Sinn Fein ardfheis in 1986 the Northern group consolidated its hold on the organisation. The ardfheis, in the Mansion House in Dublin, adopted a motion stating that Sinn Fein members who succeeded in being elected in general elections in the Republic could take their seats in the Dail.
Adams made it clear that this was purely for reasons of tactical political gain and not because the party had any desire to recognise the legitimacy of the "Leinster House" governments which had succeeded the first Dail.
This was, however, de facto recognition of Dail Eireann and something which purist republicans could not stomach. The former Sinn Fein president Ruairi O Bradaigh led a walk out along with O Conaill and some others. The majority stayed with Adams.
Subsequently the new Northern leaders moved on towards a policy which came to be termed the "unarmed strategy". This was outlined in keynote Sinn Fein addresses as being based on the creation of a broad, or "pan nationalist", political front which would obviate the need for the IRA military campaign.
Increasingly the key term in Sinn Fein speeches and documents of the 1970s and 1980s, victory", as in "Victory to the Blanket Men, Hunger Strikers", was replaced by "peace", as in "Time for Peace, Time To Go". The word "peace" was included in the title of almost every policy document issued from Sinn Fein offices.
While republican language became increasingly pacifist, the military struggle became more brutal, with acts like the Warrington bombing which killed the children, Jonathan Ball and Tim Parry and the bombing of Frizzell's fish shop on the Shankill Road with the deaths of 10 Protestant civilians.
The "peace process", however, took hold, and Adams's leadership was rewarded with political concessions such as the dropping of the broadcasting ban in the Republic and visas to visit the US.
At the point in 1994 where there was seen to be nationalist consensus between the Sinn Fein and SDLP leaderships and the then Fianna Fail Labour government, together with Irish American support, Adams and McGuinness moved the organisation to the point where the IRA called its "cessation" of "military activities". The word "ceasefire" was never used and, as Adams himself observed, the IRA had not gone away.
During the 17 months of the "cessation", the IRA continued to train its members. Towards the end of 1995, when the IRA began to move towards ending its "cessation", it shot dead six alleged drug dealers in Northern Ireland.
What happened towards the end of 1995, it appears, was that the IRA decided that no further political gains were to be made from the "cessation" and the peace process.
After some months, during which Sinn Fein increasingly condemned the British government for causing a "crisis" in the peace process, the IRA made its bomb attack on Canary Wharf on February 9th last. This effectively precluded Sinn Fein participation in the anticipated all party talks and Forum in Northern Ireland.
The fact that the IRA was moving back towards simple armed struggle and drawing Sinn Fein away from the path towards constitutional politics might have been deduced from the party's rejection of the Dublin Forum's final report.
The report confirmed the principle of majority consent in Northern Ireland, something which it had been believed Sinn Hume Adams document of 1993 and which had been endorsed by the IRA's Army Council in a statement of October 1993.
The rejection of the Dublin Forum report marked a reversion to form. It appears the Hume Adams document, on which the whole "peace process" hinged, was not, in the IRA's eyes, worth the paper it was written on.
The latest reports on the balance of power within the IRA Sinn Fein leadership is that it has, in fact, been wrested from the politically inclined group around McGuinness and Adams back to the military purists. This group argued consistently that the best way to bring about a British withdrawal from Northern Ireland was through bombing Britain.
While some political leaders have taken comfort in the fact that the IRA has not yet restarted its military campaign inside Northern Ireland, it may be that this has not happened because it is not yet expedient to do so.