IRA statements have a way of causing ripples, no matter what the content. The organisation's history of wreaking carnage and destruction means any statement it issues has the same immediate and alarming impact as a pistol at a concert.
The content of these statements, particularly when addressing non-paramilitary matters, is often ambiguous and even obscure.
One gains the impression that coded messages are being sent to different camps and pockets of supporters to reassure them the revolution is in safe hands and, whatever their anxieties, everything will be all right on the night.
Sinn Fein can sometimes be a distorting mirror of what is going on in the IRA but it was clear from the first instalment of the party's ardfheis last month that there was a fair amount of anxiety, nervousness and concern throughout the movement over the Belfast Agreement.
Mr Gerry Adams and Mr Martin McGuinness have taken their followers a long distance from the simple brutal days of bullet and bomb.
The hardware may be still to hand but republicans are now mixing in the world of high diplomacy and international relations, popping into Downing Street, being received at the White House, escorting a high-level African National Congress delegation around both parts of the island.
It's all a little bit unnerving for your average republican militant, especially against a background of constant denunciation and taunts of "sell-out" from splinter and dissident republican groups.
A senior republican with a formidable history told me recently of being verbally assailed at a middle-class soiree and accused of betrayal by one of the well-heeled guests whose grandfather was "out" in 1921.
Yesterday's IRA statement restated the traditional republican position that a durable peace requires the end of British rule and the exercise of national self-determination, but that the Belfast Agreement falls short on both counts.
Although mainstream nationalists have been arguing that the simultaneous North-South vote on May 22nd does, in fact, constitute an exercise in self-determination, this analysis is not shared by the IRA and Sinn Fein.
The republicans make the point, for example, that the Northern referendum is being organised by what they regard as a foreign government.
It is therefore clear republicans will resist the argument that the 1998 result supersedes the 1918 election in which, in the words of the Unionist historian, Ronald McNeill: "The whole of Nationalist Ireland had gone over with foot, horse and artillery, with bag and baggage . . . to the Sinn Feiners, who made no pretence that their aim was anything short of complete independent sovereignty for Ireland".
Mr Adams told reporters outside Belfast City Hall: "It's clear that the vote in the South will have no impact at all on what is happening in the North".
He added: "It is also clear that people in the South are being asked to do things in relation to their own Constitution which people in the North don't have to do."
But he continued: "The important thing about the IRA statement in terms of the referenda is that it didn't call upon people not to vote, it didn't seek to influence what way people should vote."
Mainstream nationalists would respond that, no matter who is organising the May 22nd polls, the wishes of real, living people should override those of 80 years ago.
Obviously we are at the start of a long and complex debate on this issue.
In the shorter term, as Mr Adams suggested, the importance of the IRA statement is that it gives the political leadership a free hand to recommend whatever it chooses.
The Sinn Fein ardchomhairle is due to meet next week to discuss its recommendation to the resumed ardfheis.
It is likely the party's executive body will recommend taking seats in the new assembly; that will require a two-thirds vote from delegates on May 10th.
The possibility Sinn Fein may urge a vote for the agreement in the North and a vote against in the Republic can still not be fully ruled out. There is deep feeling on this issue in the organisation south of the Border and sources said members were "agonising" over changes in Articles 2 and 3.
However, an apparently contradictory and inconsistent stance on the agreement would hurt Sinn Fein internationally, where the subtleties of the Articles 2 and 3 debate would not be readily grasped. In external political terms, Mr Adams is under pressure to call for a Yes vote throughout the island but he must do so without losing significant internal support.
In that context, the intervention of the African National Congress, both at the ardfheis and at various meetings this week, has been most helpful to politically minded republicans. It is very hard to argue with revolutionaries who have won in their own country and are making the point that tactical flexibility does not involve selling-out on principles.
The reiteration by the IRA of its stance that there will be no decommissioning will undoubtedly reassure its own followers but it creates difficulties for unionists who are backing the agreement.
It is understood senior security sources in the North share the view of many nationalists and loyalists that decommissioning is a side-issue: it is more important to remove the desire to use weapons than to remove the weapons themselves. But the decommissioning debate drags on. It seems to be one of those issues that will never die, yet never be resolved.