In 1980, he had told the Sinn Fein Ard Fheis (conference) that the British knew they could not win a military campaign - but republicans had to realise this too.

Three years later Gerry Adams won the West Belfast constituency - a victory that paved his way to becoming president of Sinn Fein later that year. At street level, Sinn Fein had established a network of advice centres as it prepared to fight more and more elections.

At the 1986 conference, he completed the coup by persuading the movement to drop its abstentionist policy from the Dail, the Irish parliament - the very issue that split the IRA in 1969.

This highly symbolic decision meant that republicans not only officially recognised the Irish state but were increasingly inclined to seek a political rather than purely military outcome.