Has Their Day Finally Come?

For decades, members of the I.R.A. have scrawled the slogan on walls and shouted it out in British courts: "Our day will come." Now they are being asked to consider whether that day has arrived — even if it's not quite in the way they expected. Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams said last week that the time has come for the I.R.A. to consider a "purely political and democratic" approach to its goal of a united Ireland. The I.R.A. said it would give the request from its political allies "due consideration."

Adams' opponents accuse him of electioneering: he delivered his message surrounded by his party's candidates on the day after Britain's general election was announced. Unionist leaders say he's seeking to relieve pressure on Sinn Fein after accusations of I.R.A. involvement in a $50 million bank robbery and the murder of Robert McCartney in a Belfast bar. And the I.R.A. has often boosted Sinn Fein by making peaceful gestures just before elections. But that hasn't stopped the British and Irish governments hoping for a breakthrough in the flagging Northern Ireland peace process.

Adams denies being an I.R.A. leader, but he wields undeniable influence in the republican movement. Even if he is vote grabbing, his request should get results. "Adams can't unsay this," a senior British official told TIME, "which suggests he's expecting this to succeed rather than fail."