The 1970s was the most violent decade in the history of Northern Ireland. By the end of the decade, over two thousand people had died as a result of ‘the troubles’, roughly half at the hands of the Provisional IRA. The impotence of the IRA in August 1969 contrasted with its rapid transition to a movement capable of deadly insurgency. The split in the movement had been finalised during the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis of 10 and 11 January 1970, and the purpose of this chapter is to consider the development of either faction in the aftermath of this division. Approaches to post-split republicanism would prove crucial as the possibility of reunification as well as the threat of further division remained constant for both the Provisional and Official republicans.

The split was cast as one between the political and the military tendencies of republicanism, the Irish Press defining five reasons for the split: the recognition of the parliaments at Stormont, Leinster House and Westminster; the growth of extreme socialism which was felt to be leading towards a dictatorship; a dispute over internal methods used within the movement; the failure of the armed wing to defend Belfast Catholics; and the campaign to retain rather than abolish Stormont. This is not to say that the republican leadership necessarily supported the Stormont parliament, rather they sought to embrace it and challenge it from within. They felt that the goal of achieving political mandate from the electorate across Ireland required the movement to work within existing structures.