The party, alongside other more militant republicans, however, continues to revere one of the most controversial figures in 19th century Irish republicanism, John Mitchel. One veteran of the IRA’s West Belfast Brigade who was once close to Adams and his family doubts that the former MP for the constituency and TD for Louth in the Irish Republic is about to relinquish his full control of the party. As a result, Mr Adams’ detention had not been lawfully authorised. His detention was therefore invalid, and it followed that he should not have been convicted of attempting to escape from lawful custody for the elementary but inevitable reason that the custody in which he had been detained was, in fact, not lawful. His appeal is therefore allowed, and his convictions are quashed.” He is interned without trial in Long Kesh prison camp as an IRA suspect, but freed that summer to join an IRA delegation that held secret meetings with British ministers in London. 1973-76 One of our greatest achievements has been to build a peace process. I will not be standing for the Dáil; neither will Martin Ferris [a former IRA gunrunner and Sinn Féin TD]. This is also my last Ard Fheis,” said Adams. He said he would ask the party’s national executive to agree a date in 2018 to elect the next Sinn Féin president.

The second development of significance was the Government’s commitment to commission a Public History of the Troubles – a professional study based upon research in official archives. Adams has been at the centre of power within Sinn Féin since the early 1970s after he was released from internment without trial. He has always denied claims that from 1972 onwards he held a senior position, firstly in the Belfast IRA, and later as overall leader of the Provisionals.

Adams and other Sinn Féin representatives have to regularly go through additional searches and scrutiny when travelling to and from the US. The decision was critiqued in successive Policy Exchange papers by Professor Richard Ekins and Sir Stephen Laws. A further 187 “comfort letters” to those “On the Run” were issued between 2000 and 2014 (the latter was pressed on Tony Blair by Bertie Ahern in December 1999). There have been strong hints that Adams may seek to run for the Irish presidency when the elections are held in autumn 2018. Deaglán de Bréadún, the author of Power Play: The Rise of Modern Sinn Féin, said: “It is hard to imagine him withdrawing entirely from political activity.”

Justice for individual servicemen is to be welcomed. But the real significance of the Bill is for the collective – the reaffirmation of the obligation of the British State, as the legal governing power in Northern Ireland, enjoying a monopoly of legal armed force, to protect its servants. Not blindly, but properly. He also published a book of tweets, My Little Book of Tweets, with Mercier Press in Cork in 2016, hoping to "show the lighter side of his personality and allow the reader some insight into his private life." Mr Adams said that he was glad he did not know in advance about the bomb, because it would have raised serious dilemmas in terms of the moral imperative to prevent or report it,” according to an Irish government report of the meeting, part of a collection of state papers released this week by the National Archives of Ireland. The British Government was reluctant to feed them during dialogue leading up to the Good Friday Agreement in 1997 and 1998, so the republican negotiators took matters into their own hands, he said. His double was driven to the Maze where the plan was that he would be swapped for Adams in a visiting hut. Prison staff had been alerted, however, and Adams was arrested.His longstanding connection to the IRA’s violent “armed struggle” and his often poor performances in Dáil parliamentary debates continue to alienate vast sections of the Irish Republic’s middle class. The use of the word has provoked a storm of controversy in Ireland and beyond but Adams initially insisted he was using the word ironically. Adams revealed he was writing The Negotiators Cookbook, promising recipes with "some of the best-kept secrets of the [1998] Irish peace process", while at west Belfast arts festival Féile an Phobail over the weekend. Gerry Adams denies he was consulted on what he calls an alleged IRA army council decision or that he had any final say in the matter being sanctioned. Photograph: Clodagh Kilcoyne/Reuters Malachi O’Doherty, author of Gerry Adams: An Unauthorised Life, said: “The priority for Adams is that his party never disowns the IRA.