I'm no defender of the IRA. You no reason to assume the author of this piece was, either- you literally don't know the author's full name, after all.

Do you assume that anybody named "Liam" would be an apologist for republican terrorism?

And if you want the physical force tradition to be brought to an end, you should be SUPPORTING the legitimization of SF as a political party- there was never going to be any other way of getting The Troubles at least as close to an end as they are without that- there was never going to be a way of ending it based on putting the military defeat of the Provos- an unachievable objective and one that, even if achieved would have no other effect but to cause the creation of dozens of far worse splinter groups pledged to avenge its defeat- ahead of all other objectives or concerns.

The Troubles were never caused or perpetuated solely or even primarily by the IRA- the IRA was caused and perpetuated by the history of Ireland. If the IRA hadn't come into existence, something else like it would have.

The way to make them irrelevant is to end the injustice that caused them, not to treat their existence as something that something that simply has no reason to be. There's no scenario short of the GFA that ever would have led to the IRA simply vanishing.

The Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four are innocent, btw. It's time to admit it.