But there was still a stumbling block that could hold things up, Downing Street told Hain. There was one last concession the IRA leadership needed to convince republicans to make the decisive move: the release from jail of Sean Kelly, the Shankill bomber.

Kelly is by turns an iconic figure for many hardline republicans and a hate figure for loyalists, after killing 10 people in a bomb attack on a fish and chip shop in 1993. He was freed in 2000 under the terms of the Good Friday agreement but Hain had sent him back to jail last month because of police reports that he was involved in further IRA activity.

So how could Hain reverse his decision? He realised that the IRA statement on his desk gave him the means to do it.

A close aide said: “When Peter read the statement he could see that the basis on which he had detained Kelly had changed. If the IRA carried this through, then Kelly would no longer be a danger to others.”

So Hain decided to free Kelly on the basis that violent IRA activity would be at an end once their statement was issued. The IRA bomber walked free at 8.45pm on Wednesday. The final piece of the jigsaw was in place. The stage was set for the four-city choreography of Thursday’s IRA announcement.

KELLY’S release may have been a last dramatic act, but the process leading up to the IRA statement was a sweatdown — six months of unremitting political pressure on Sinn Fein and the IRA by the British, Irish and American governments.

In the end, the IRA stood down as an active paramilitary group because it was the only way to get Sinn Fein out of the political doghouse.

The new political deal is close to the one crafted by the British and Irish governments at Leeds Castle late last year. That fell through when the IRA refused to allow its decommissioned weapons to be photographed, or to say in a statement that criminality and intimidation were over.

The reason for the IRA’s reticence became clear within weeks of the aborted deal: it carried out the biggest bank robbery in British or Irish history, stealing £26.5m (€38.4m) from the Northern Bank in Belfast.

It was then that the pressure started. Bertie Ahern, the taoiseach, accused Sinn Fein’s leadership of being part of the IRA leadership that sanctioned the raid and accused them of treating him like an idiot when they denied it. The British government cut Sinn Fein MPs’ Westminster allowances and scaled down contact with the party.

A month later a gang of IRA members killed Robert McCartney, a Belfast Catholic and Sinn Fein voter, after an argument in a pub. Republican guilt was compounded when organised rioting stopped the police searching for evidence, and witnesses were intimidated. McCartney’s five sisters launched a high-profile campaign that put unbearable international pressure on republicans.

The low point for Sinn Fein came when it was excluded from the St Patrick’s Day reception in the White House and the McCartney sisters were invited instead. Sinn Fein depends heavily on its American links for finance but cancelled fundraising events after it became clear that the White House was considering imposing visa restrictions.

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