ABSTRACT
Since 1989 there have been a further series of twists in Irish republican military and political activity. In many ways we are still trying to make sense of these events as they have yet to reveal their full significance. The years are often slow to yield the whole story and, inevitably, the more we enter the contemporary era the more impressionistic our analysis of PIRA’s behaviour becomes. Interpretations become less reliant on solid evidence tempered by hindsight and far more on hunches and conjecture based on historical precedent.
