Gerry Adams
The 1975 IRA-British truce is often viewed as the event that began the challenge to the original Provisional Sinn Féin leadership, which was said to be Southern-based and dominated by southerners like Ó Brádaigh and Ó Conaill. However, the Chief of Staff of the IRA at the time, Seamus Twomey, was a senior figure from Belfast. Others in the leadership also lived in the North, including Billy McKee from Belfast. Adams was supposed to have become the most senior figure in the IRA Northern Command because he wanted only military action, but during his time in prison, Adams came to thought about his ideas and became more political.