"Nobody should be apologising for the IRA, other than those in the republican movement, " he said.
More than a decade after the failed referendum, the republican movement is in the doldrums.
But the republican movement, secretive and often clan-like, was utterly shocked by the revelation.
Known as the Path to Prosperity, it delighted the Tea Party, an anti-tax, limited-government, grassroots Republican movement.
The republican movement is famously impenetrable but voices within it are still highly resistant to giving up their guns.
The republican movement have issued apologies before, notably in 2002 and 2003, to what they termed non combatants.
Fiscal cliff: At the start of the negotiations, the White House welcomed the Republican movement toward revenue.
He took over the leadership of the Liberal Party from Malcolm Turnbull, the former head of the republican movement.
The biggest republican group, the Australian Republican Movement, is led by Malcolm Turnbull, a rich Sydney lawyer and merchant banker.
But ultimately, the political strategy grew increasingly important to the republican movement.
BBC: NEWS | UK | Northern Ireland | Profile: Martin McGuinness
The Irish called it the University of Revolution, and it played a big part in the evolution of the republican movement in Ireland.
Hardliners in his own party pulled him one way, arguing that the republican movement was not offering enough, and probably was not sincere anyway.
That fundamental departure from traditional doctrine has split the republican movement.
The hardliners have always argued that unionists and the British government want to negotiate with republicans only in order to split them and destroy the republican movement.
His task is to continue to lead the republican movement away from its history of violence, without capitulating to unionist demands that would provoke an inevitable backlash.
Speaking to the BBC from the conference, Sinn Fein's north Belfast assembly member Gerry Kelly acknowledged that there was nervousness within the republican movement about the IRA move.
The latest crisis in the peace process was precipitated by Mr Trimble's resignation as first minister in July, a move designed to put pressure on the republican movement.
BBC: David Trimble arriving at Stormont for a series of meetings
But that remains a smallish sliver of the republican movement.
They believe that many unionists have never had any intention of sharing power, and are using decommissioning either to break the peace deal, or to emasculate the republican movement.
"The republican movement's continued integration into the democratic fabric is the best - and indeed only - way of fulfilling its political objectives and ably representing its community, " he said.
This weekend it is the venue for a conference at which the DUP will survey its record of sharing power over the past two years with a transformed republican movement.
Bertie Ahern, the Irish prime minister, reacted with dismay, declaring that his government had assumed that Sinn Fein had signed the Mitchell principles on behalf of the entire republican movement.
Until 1986 the republican movement rejected not just Parliament in Westminster and the notion of a Northern Ireland assembly, but also the legitimacy of the Irish state and its parliament.
Mr Brunerie is said to have a number of links to far-right organisations, standing as a local election candidate for the National Republican Movement (MNR), an offshoot of Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front.
He played this role during the crucial years when the republican movement began the slow shift away from an armed campaign, leading ultimately to the IRA's ceasefire and dumping of its arms.
But, in the special circumstances of Northern Ireland, history should also record that Mr Trimble's negotiating partners both in government and in the republican movement didn't do much to help him at critical moments.
MacStiofain joined the Irish republican movement's English organisation, the United Irishmen, but was jailed in the early 1950s when, along with two other IRA men, he was caught in a failed arms raid on a British Army barracks in Essex.
Irrespective of what position he now holds within the movement, his republican credentials have remained as impeccable to this day.
BBC: NEWS | UK | Northern Ireland | Profile: Martin McGuinness
On Monday there was significant movement on the Republican side toward more middle ground, which suggested both sides are coming closer to a deal.
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Second, today and in the coming months and years, there will be a lot of soul-searching in the Republican party and the conservative movement over what went wrong in the 2012 elections.
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