The two-sentence statement from the IRA, announcing that it had disposed of its arms, ended with an enigma: Who exactly is P O'Neill of the Irish Republican Publicity Bureau, Dublin, the name that appears at the end of IRA statements?

Given the well-documented history of the Irish republican movement's leadership during the past 30 years, P O'Neill is probably nobody but a committee, perhaps the so-called "Army Council" of seven leading republicans.

But the use of the name on scores of IRA public statements, which have sought to justify the movement's armed conflict, poses a question: just how does a supposedly secret organisation communicate with the outside world?