Even as Sinn Féin had thrived as a political party, not just in Northern Ireland but in the Republic, and achieved stature and influence beyond the most ambitious imaginings of its leaders, the party’s fortunes still seemed tied, inextricably, to those of its charismatic president. Sinn Féin had plenty of young, polished representatives who, having grown up after the worst of the Troubles were over, bore no compromising taint of paramilitary violence. This new cohort did not lack for ambition. But they were unwilling, or unable, to shuffle the old men of the IRA off the stage.
