A new biography of the president of Republican Sinn Féin throws fresh light on the circumstances in which the Provisional IRA abandoned its policy of abstentionism from Leinster House.
Ruairí Ó Brádaigh: The Life and Politics of an Irish Revolutionary by US academic Prof Robert W White is to be published next month by Indiana University Press.
Written with the co-operation of its subject, the new book denies the accepted belief that an Irish-language conference in Co Meath in September 1986 was used as "cover" for the IRA convention which dropped the abstentionist policy whereby militant republican TDs traditionally refused to take their Dáil seats.
The convention was the first to be held by the IRA for 16 years. White describes how it was "organised and dominated by the young Northerners" who shared the view held by Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness that it was time to end the Leinster House boycott.
"The abstentionists argued that the IRA ultimately would suffer if Sinn Féin became a constitutional party. The young Northerners countered that there was no IRA campaign in the South to be compromised and pledged to take the IRA campaign to an even higher level."
To prevent a split, the traditionalists were assured that the IRA "was in the process of receiving significant arms shipments that would allow them to take the campaign to another level".
According to Prof White, delegates at the convention voted 75 per cent to 25 per cent in favour of allowing Sinn Féin candidates to take their seats if elected. "But the opposition delegates believed that the vote was gerrymandered by the creation of new IRA organisational structures for the convention."
Mr Ó Brádaigh and his supporters later set up their own organisation.