A number of high-profile IRA prisoners were among those who attended the Sinn Fein Ardfheis in Dublin yesterday, after temporary releases were approved by the British and Irish authorities.
The prisoners released for the occasion included four members of the Balcombe Street gang, who have served more than 22 years in British jails, and Padraig Wilson, the "officer commanding" at the Maze Prison.
Wilson (37) is serving a 24-yearsentence for bomb-making and has been described by one prison officer as "the most powerful individual in the Maze".
The Balcombe Street gang - so named following a six-day siege in Marylebone, London, in 1975 - were transferred from England to Portlaoise Prison last week. They are expected to receive early full releases, providing the IRA ceasefire holds.
The four men are Martin O'Connell (46), from Ennis, Co Clare, Eddie Butler (49) from Limerick, Harry Duggan (46) from Feakle, Co Clare, and Hugh Doherty (47), from Donegal, who is a brother of the Sinn Fein vicepresident, Mr Pat Doherty.
They were jailed for a series of no-warning bomb attacks on pubs, including the devices which exploded at bars in Guildford and Woolwich, for which Mr Paul Hill, Mr Gerry Conlon, Mr Paddy Armstrong and Ms Carole Richardson, were wrongly convicted in 1977.
Seven people were killed in the bomb attacks on the pubs frequented by off-duty soldiers in the garrison towns in 1975.
Admissions to the Guildford bombings made by McConnell, Butler, Duggan and another IRA prisoner, Brendan Dowd, were ignored by the British authorities and the Guildford Four remained in prison for 15 years before their convictions were overturned on appeal, marking one of the gravest miscarriages of justice in British legal history.
The Balcombe Street gang were also responsible for a number of other atrocities: the killing of leading cancer researcher Prof Gordon Fairley; bomb attacks on London West End restaurants which claimed two lives; an explosion on the London underground in which a man died; and the shooting dead of Mr Ross McWhirter, co-author of The Guinness Book of Records.
Dowd, who was arrested in England before the Balcombe Street siege, was transferred to Portlaoise Prison early last year and released in December.
Others who attended the conference were Geraldine Ann Ferrity and Martina Anderson, who are serving sentences at Maghaberry Prison in Derry. Ferrity was jailed for life in 1993, along with James Alphonsus Duffin, for the murder of a UDR sergeant major, Mr Albert Cooper.
Anderson was found guilty of conspiracy to cause explosions in Britain in 1986. She was convicted along with Ella O'Dwyer.