STANDING with Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness outside Connolly House, Sinn Fein's Belfast headquarters, on the day the IRA announced its "complete cessation of military operations", Pat Doherty, the party's vice president, sensed a tinge of concern in his own optimism.

Faced with a euphoric crowd, he shared its wonder "that we had almost, unbelievably, created this new scenario". He didn't, he remembers, "have a sense that things were over because things are never over in politics, really. But I definitely had a sense that something special had been created." But behind that feeling, he was also thinking: "God, I hope we can fulfil these expectations".

Now, 21 months on, all the euphoria is gone and the worries have moved from the back of the mind to the front. Talking to Sinn Fein activists as the party prepared for this week's elections, it is hard to see a way for the optimism to return.

Three things are obvious: there is little condemnation of the IRA's breach of the ceasefire; there is implacable opposition to the decommissioning of any IRA weapons before a final settlement ("decommissioning is a nice word for surrender", says Pat McGeown in Belfast); and there is very little expectation of a renewal of the ceasefire before the talks begin on June 10th.

Sinn Fein activists in Derry, Belfast and south Armagh agree now that, whatever they said at the time of the ceasefire, they expected little in the way of an immediate response from the British government. Many even admit that the unionist demand for a three month "decontamination", while they resented it, was not especially problematic.

"You would even give them their three months," says Gary Fleming, in Derry "Even if you allow them beyond Christmas, and into the new year. You understand that you're dealing with the Brits, and Irish Republicans have never trusted them. But in January 1995, things would have been starting to happen. When they didn't, people think `Well, that just justifies our mistrust of the British'."

For Pat McGeown, in Belfast, real worries started around the same time. "I was working with prisoners and their families. By Christmas 1994, there was obviously going to be no movement on prisoners and the English prison conditions were actually starting to deteriorate.

"At the same time, the RUC and army presence was still heavy on the streets. From that Christmas, Istarted to come under pressure from prisoners' relatives who were asking very pointedly: `Is this a peace process? Are we being tricked'.

By the late summer of 1995, there was a general expectation in Sinn Fein that an end to the ceasefire was highly probable. "At any level," says Pat Doherty, some of the people involved might be members of the IRA. They would obviously be doing their own communications through their own links.

"But, essentially, they wouldn't have been so worried about what was happening in the IRA. They were worried about what was happening in the process. I suppose people would have had a worry that this was hardly the scenario that the IRA expected to develop."

The Sinn Fein leadership may have been surprised by the timing of the Canary Wharf bomb, but it is very difficult to find any criticism within the party of the IRA's decision to set it off. According to Pat McGeown, "our people exhausted themselves trying to keep the process going".

""When it came to last February, we had nothing else to offer. And that was the context in which the IRA took its decision. It was because of the hopelessness of the situation that they felt, and I think our community felt, that there was no other choice."

Gary Fleming, in Derry, agrees. He had, he says, "mixed feelings about Canary Wharf. One, that it was a sorry end and we didn't want, to have to go back to that. And the other was that the Brits weren't for moving. The Brits were attempting to win in peacetime a victory that they couldn't achieve in war.

"And there will always be someone in Ireland, whether they're as well organised as the IRA or not, who will take on the Brits militarily. That's what happened - people realised that the causes weren't being dealt with in any meaningful manner, and they said it's time to go back to war. You can be well assured that republicans, while not wishing to see anybody killed, welcomed that attack."

There is, indeed, a belief in Sinn Fein that the bomb, which killed two newsagents, was not only justified but effective. "We have to be realistic," says Pat Doherty. "Having put the nationalist consensus together, it did fail to move the British towards a date for negotiations. Yet, three or four weeks after a bomb goes off in London, a date is produced. John Bruton says the date was coming anyway, but there's other people think differently."

Gary Fleming says that "the action at Canary Wharf seemed to focus people again - `God, we're not going back in to all that, let's get something going.' In a way, it kept it up there.

Sinn Fein members do understand that the party made significant gains as a result of the 1994 IRA ceasefire. Contacts with the SDLP and with the political parties in the Republic, as well as with the Clinton administration, were highly valued. So, too, were the ordinary benefits of peace.

"There had been a change in people's lifestyles during the 18 months of the ceasefire," says Pat McNamee, in Crossmaglen. "A lot more freedom of movement, a lot less concern about driving home in the dark, about driving to certain areas, a lot more relaxed atmosphere, the absence of harassment, checkpoints and routine delays, the absence of fear.

"I suppose it would be not as noticeable as the different restraints were gradually removed from their lives but then, as you're suddenly faced with the prospect of all those restraints and oppression and fear returning overnight, people were concerned."

BUT those gains do not outweigh the belief that, in political terms, the peace process has failed to advance the republican agenda. "Republicans recognise," says Pat McNamee, "that there has to be a political process.

"But at the end of the day, what changes have we brought about over the last two years? We're no further on except that the British have agreed that there should be all party negotiations. That's all that has happened. Progress has been very limited."

The failure of the peace process has also discouraged any move towards a re examination of Sinn Fein's own political ideology. In Crossmaglen, Sinn Fein activists say that what they understand by "compromise" is that Britain might withdraw over a period of 10 years rather than immediately. At a higher level, there is a more obvious willingness to concede the necessity for an "interim" settlement that falls short of British withdrawal and a united Ireland.

But the basic analysis is essentially the same. "Sinn Fein's belief," says Pat Doherty, "is that the only way in which there can be a final settlement is through national self determination. National self determination means that the British have to be out of the situation and then we can work out with the unionists whatever way this country is to be run.

"Nobody expects that to happen overnight. Our policy is that it should happen within the lifetime of a British government, which is five years. Now nobody is going to argue if it is achieved in 10 years. But the core - that the British have to disengage from Ireland - is fundamental.

"How it happens, when it happens, is all up for negotiation and dialogue. Are we going to settle for less than that core value? I don't think so. But there is a realisation that there may be an interim stage towards that."

According to Pat McGeown, the absence of political movement has meant that there has been "no debate" within the republican movement about the shape of a negotiated deal.

"Where those sort of interim solutions come about is after people lock into each other, and knock each other about, and end up in compromise positions. The process is about that resolution of conflict. But it's impossible in the current situation to go out and say to some one `What do you view as a fin settlement?'

"What republicans will say at the minute is that what we see as a final settlement is our view of the world. And why shouldn't we? Because nobody is coming to offer us anything better anyway. There's no incentive" for people to even think in those terms."

In that context, there is little expectation that the IRA will call another ceasefire, that Sinn Fein will be at the talks, or that the talks process will lead to a settlement.

There is a vicious circle from which it seems impossible to escape republicans believe that the very demand that there should be an IRA ceasefire before Sinn Fein can take part in talks is evidence that the process is "not serious". The logic of this position is that Sinn Fein will only go to the IRA to ask for another ceasefire if Sinn Fein is no longer required to go to the IRA to ask for another ceasefire.

"I would love to be optimistic," says Gary Fleming, Sinn Fein organiser in Derry, "but, honestly, I'm not. I would firmly be of the belief that Sinn Fein should be entering talks solely on our mandate. If an IRA ceasefire is a pre condition, that is where it will fall. I just have this feeling that the IRA won't call a ceasefire, that Sinn Fein won't be allowed to enter the talks, and who knows where it goes after that?

"If you took a straw poll in nationalist West Belfast," says Pat McGeown, "the view here is that all party talks aren't going to lead anywhere under the current set up because there doesn't appear to be the interest to engage.

According to Pat McNamee, there is in south Armagh "scepticism at this point as to whether this particular stage of the process is going to lead anywhere." The most hopeful statement he can muster is that "if the talks collapse, there can be another initiative taken at that point to maintain the process. All the bets aren't on this particular agenda. Sinn Fein will continue to a negotiated solution".

Yet there remains an understanding among republicans that the 1994 ceasefire, in the words of Gary Fleming, "had to come, because the alternative was just a war of attrition".

"The threat of a full scale resumption of violence in Northern Ireland is real. If there isn't an ongoing process which has the potential to resolve the situation," says Pat McNamee, "if that process completely collapses, it is inevitable there will be a return to armed conflict. That has to be at the back of everybody's mind, that that's a situation we might have to face."

But there is also an understanding that a return to the war of attrition would pose enormous political's difficulties for the party. This dilemma has not been solved, merely shunted into the limbo of a ceasefire that is neither on nor off.

"It is obvious at the present time," says Pat McNamee, "that the IRA has taken a conscious decision not to resume the campaign to its full extent in the six counties, although the ceasefire is ended. It is difficult to determine when or how the IRA will decide that that situation is over."

For all the tough talk of a return to war, Sinn Fein understands that the 1994 ceasefire happened because republicanism had no real alternative, and that another period of conflict will merely postpone the inevitable moment of truth. "I absolutely believe," says Pat Doherty, "that we're in an era of conflict resolution. I don't know how long it's going to last. But I do think it's the endgame."