Eleven years ago when Ruairi O Bradaigh led his supporters from the Sinn Fein ardfheis, he was regarded as yesterday's man. "The only place you will be going is home," warned Martin Mc Guin ness before the group left behind a piper playing Take It Down From the Mast Irish Traitors.
The split followed the ardfheis decision to abandon abstention ism from the Dail. Mr O Bra
daigh said it was the start of a pro cess which would lead ultimately to the ending of the IRA campaign and an acceptance of partition. However, as Provisional IRA violence continued, few believed him. The party he formed, Republican Sinn Fein, disappeared into the political wilderness.
After the Provisionals' 1994 ceasefire, however, RSF's profile slowly increased as it voiced opposition to the peace process. A ser ies of recent attacks by the hardline Continuity IRA has also focused attention on the party.
Security sources say the CIRA is the military wing of ein, RSF, a claim it denies. However, the party says it has always supported "the right of the Irish people to use armed struggle in a controlled and disciplined fashion".
Today RSF holds its ardfheis in Dublin which Mr O Bradaigh describes as the most important one since 1986 because differences with the Provisionals "have never been clearer". He is not surprised by the resignation of some senior Provisionals. "It appears to be the most serious development in the Provisionals since 1986. It is not unexpected. People are at last taking their courage in their hands."
Appeals will be made at the ard fheis to other Provisionals - who RSF says have been "misled" into supporting the peace process - to defect. RSF will also map out a strategy to oppose any deal emerging from the Stormont talks.
"The so-called peace process is about updating and modernising British rule in Ireland," Mr O Bradaigh says. "There will be a `new Stormont' with the frills of cross-Border bodies. That was on the table in Sunningdale in 1973 but republicans rejected it. Has the mountain of sacrifice since been for nothing?"
He believes Sinn Fein will attempt to sell the deal as an interim settlement. "It will be presented as a stepping stone. The Treaty was sold as a stepping-stone and the Border is still in place." He dismisses suggestions that the Provi sionals' political transformation is reversible and they could return to traditional, uncompromising rep ublicanism: "If it walks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, it is a duck." He views Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness "in much the same way as I view Michael Collins and De Valera".
Mr O Bradaigh (65) was Sinn Fein president from 1970 to 1983 but was gradually pushed aside by the Adams faction which, ironically, portrayed him as too soft.
O Bradaigh (65) He was born into a middle-class republican family in Longford. A graduate of University College Dublin, he trained as a teacher but devoted his life to the republican movement. He joined Sinn Fein when he was 17 and later the IRA, of which he became chief-of-staff twice in the 1950s and 1960s. He was elected Sinn Fein TD for Longford-Westmeath in 1957 while in Mountjoy.
He has been described as "a quiet, courteous man with a strong will and an unshakeable belief in the correctness of his own views". Critics say he is too legalistic and dogmatic. Colleagues speak of his "basic honesty and lack of pretension".
O Bradaigh he says he is now in good health and "on call for RSF 24 hours a day".
RSF is believed to have about 500 members and has experienced "remarkable growth" in Derry, Dublin and the Border areas, particularly among young people. There has been a "steady dribble" of defectors from the Provisionals, he says, but he admits that recruitment in Belfast "is slow". However, some observers doubt RSF's capacity for growth.
O Bradaigh agrees his party is still not a major political player but believes this will change.
"The IRB was small at the turn of the century yet became a powerful force," he says. "The Provisionals were not a big organisation in 1969 and look how they grew. RSF can draw a new generation to republicanism."