AFTER almost a decade in the wilderness, a sense of nervous expectation pervaded this weekend's Republican Sinn Fein ardfheis.
Although still small in numbers, there were repeated references to new cumainn, particularly in the Provisional republican strongholds of Belfast and Derry. An RSF cumann was set up in Derry earlier this year and a second is to be established in the city next year.
The party leadership avoided any comment on whether it would take on the Sinn Fein electoral machine in Northern Ireland in next year's British general election. The RSF president, Mr Ruairi O Bradaigh, said the party was conscious of splitting the nationalist vote in constituencies where this might allow a unionist victory.
However, Mr O Bradaigh said during a press conference yesterday that his party would contest if it was seen that Sinn Fein was prepared to follow the reformist, constitutional path which had been the cause of so many splits in the republican movement since 1922 and take seats in Westminster.
He said the republican movement had split over reformism in 1922, 1926, 1946, 1969 (when the Provisional movement was formed) and in 1986 when he and the former IRA leader, Daithi O Conaill had walked out of the Sinn Fin ardfheis and formed RSE.
There was a clear sense of expectation that the Provisional movement was heading towards a split as it is divided over whether to pursue only the democratic path. RSF is putting itself forward as the vehicle for those republicans who believe in the legitimacy of "armed struggle".
The party chose this weekend to openly declare its support for the Continuity Army Council IRA, the group which bombed the Killyhevlin Hotel in Co Fermanagh in July.
RSF and the Continuity IRA are firmly connected in the minds of the Garda and a sizeable contingent of Special Branch officers spent the weekend checking on delegates from the pavement outside the south Dublin hotel where the conference took place.
The deputy RSF leader, Mr Des Long, said that while RSF was not controlled by the Continuity IRA, the party recognised its right to "offer armed opposition" to the British presence in the North. The conference voted to stand by the Continuity IRA's actions.
However, a motion calling for the paramilitary group to use "whatever means necessary" was amended to state that such actions should be in a "controlled and disciplined manner".
The potent mixture of historical rectitude and means to mount a potentially lethal bombing campaign against commercial targets in Northern Ireland is now seen as one of the significant threats to peace.
The Continuity IRA bomb at the Killyhevlin hotel came close to killing people attending a wedding party. If this had happened, at the height of the loyalist anger over the Drumcree affair, it could have sparked equally bloody loyalist retaliation in the North.
If the "whatever means necessary" faction overcomes the "controlled and disciplined manner" faction within the Continuity IRA movement, then there could still be a security crisis in Northern Ireland.