M.L.R. Smith challenges many assumptions about the IRA, pinpointing the organisation's successes as well as its missed opportunities. He demonstrates the tension in the movement between ideology and strategic realities regarding the use of force, revealing that doctrinal purity has sometimes hampered the IRA in the pursuit of its goals. Contrary to the Irish republican movement's vigorous and assertive public face, this study uncovers an organisation characterised more by a sense of chronic insecurity than by certainty and continuity.