How the Provos reduced the peace process to the point where it may be in freefall still exercises minds, inside their world as well as outside, writes Fionnuala OConnor
But there were contradictions from the outset between running a political party and a secret army, between aiming to reform a state and refusing to accept that state's legitimacy.
These left a tight space for a lengthy exercise. The wonder is not that the process is in a bad way: it survived for so long only because many suppressed their doubts for the best of reasons.
The inherent contradictions were obvious to most of those involved, as to the many not involved and fiercely hostile. But the hostile have always behaved as though something more desirable was lost when this process began.
Those who strove to get it going or decided, often reluctantly, to give it a fair wind saw nothing desirable about the preceding situation. Nor could they see the many alternatives which enemies profess to believe were spurned.
The sea-change that was promised, and which happened because so much violence stopped, made a phenomenon glibly named the "peace process" not just tolerable but welcome to many, no matter how they disliked the name. Even the most enthusiastic could not fail to see the contradictions.
Disappointment and anger about the IRA's criminality misses the point, almost comically. How can the IRA be anything but criminal? It's an illegal army; that's the point of its existence.
It exists to overthrow the state. The point of the peace process was to manage it out of existence, or so the non-republicans involved tried very hard to believe. Now, inevitably, some wonder.
As always in hard times republicans are for the most part closing ranks, the strains of the pre-Christmas negotiations submerged again, at least for the moment.
Time now to lash out at critics and former allies alike, citing malice and envy on the part of political opponents and dirty work at the crossroads on the part of the ancient enemy, variously defined as British securocrats and Free State Blueshirts - though the last phrase tends to be kept for inhouse tantrums.
Yet when the leaders find unbugged space for conversation, and they talk only to each other, surely they drop the posturing, look at each other and groan.
Nobody knows better that they have their own "movement" to thank for the mistrust, dislike and sheer anger that now lies between them and the rest of the political world. Self-knowledge may not make that any easier to contemplate.
The argument over criminality highlighted those fundamental awkward contradictions. They were forced to the top of the agenda by the Northern Bank robbery. Size, timing and sheer arrogance lifted it into another category from the previous ignored or minimised crimes, and blew the cover of what may be the IRA's finance department. Just when the leadership had finally manoeuvred itself into what looked like the first attempts at distancing, the first acceptance that arrests and discovery might be about to make flat denials look awfully silly, there came the savagery of Magennis's Bar: uncontrolled violence followed, chillingly, by a textbook example of clean-up and intimidation.
And again a leadership, once sensitive to popular mood and alert to local circumstances, took time to realise that the killing of Robert McCartney would give them trouble in ways others had not: the quality of this outrage forced a series of rethinks. Alex Maskey, Gerry Kelly, Martin McGuinness stumbled around: P. O'Neill had yet another rushed outing, disowning the killers while leaving unclear the crucial question of giving information to police.
Although much else has been jettisoned, it seems the central doctrine remains: that since the IRA is the army of the real state, republican volunteers cannot commit crimes. So how can their own organisation urge citizens to indict them before the impostor state? And while the Provos are still struggling with that one, gardaí start turning up barrow-loads of banknotes in the other illegitimate state, the 26 counties.
Cue Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin in the Dáil calling on all criminals to leave the republican movement. Who could he possibly mean? While the war went on, republicans managed easily to reconcile open enmity to the Northern state with soft-pedalled opposition to the Republic. Peacetime has exposed the awkwardness that should have involved. Like the question of three vehicles full of young men and enough accessories to cover the spectrum of what republicanism might require of its activists, from Sinn Féin posters to fake Garda uniforms.
Almost unnoticed, prominent republicans have brushed aside their conviction for IRA membership. Yet they, and any sentenced similarly in future, will serve their sentences in a harsh new climate republicans have brought upon themselves.