For years, Sinn Fein leaders were banned from the airwaves in the UK and Ireland. Today, the nationalist party has a louder voice than ever as it targets a historic breakthrough in Northern Ireland.
Once the political wing of the paramilitary Irish Republican Army, Sinn Fein entered the political mainstream in the 1990s under long-serving leader Gerry Adams, as the IRA turned its back on decades of violence.
In 2018, Adams gave way to a new generation of leaders including Michelle O'Neill, who polls say is on course to become Northern Ireland's first premier from the nationalist, largely Catholic community.
It marks a sea-change for the party, for the UK and for Ireland, a century after the creation of what unionists called "a Protestant state for Protestant people" in Northern Ireland.
In Ireland from the 1970s, and the UK from the 80s, Adams and veterans of the IRA's armed struggle such as Martin McGuinness were barred from speaking on television and radio.
Like them, the 45-year-old O'Neill comes from strongly republican stock. Her father was jailed for IRA offences. Her cousin was shot dead by members of Britain's elite SAS regiment.
But O'Neill, vice president to Sinn Fein's all-Ireland president Mary Lou McDonald, is from a generation that came of political age after the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement ended "The Troubles".
O'Neill was deputy first minister in Belfast's outgoing assembly, sharing power uneasily with the Democratic Unionist Party before the DUP walked out in protest at the UK's post-Brexit trade deal with the European Union.
Generational change
The DUP or other unionist forces have always controlled power since Northern Ireland was established in 1921, when the rest of Ireland achieved self-rule from Britain.
That looks set to change from Thursday, when a new assembly at Stormont will be elected, with Sinn Fein enjoying a comfortable poll lead over the DUP.
And nearly a century after the nationalist party fragmented south of the border during a civil war, it is leading in Irish opinion polls too, possibly bringing its dream of reuniting Ireland closer to reality.
On both sides of the border, Sinn Fein's left-wing platform has won support from a younger generation of voters angry at their loss of access to secure jobs and housing since the 2008 financial crash.
"They have younger, dynamic leaders like Mary Lou McDonald and Michelle O'Neill, who are articulate and willing to challenge the status quo," said Deirdre Heenan, professor of social policy at Ulster University.
"But it is extraordinary that a political party can stand on a platform of bringing real change after being in power for 14 years. They are running as an opposition and government at the same time," she told AFP.
Sinn Fein's electoral breakthrough came in 2007, when McGuinness was elected deputy premier under the DUP's fundamentalist founder, Ian Paisley.
'Chuckle Brothers'
The former IRA commander made for an unlikely partnership with the hellfire Protestant preacher Paisley. But somehow, McGuinness and the then-DUP leader hit it off, earning them the affectionate nickname "the Chuckle Brothers".
Both have since died. And Sinn Fein - Irish for "We Ourselves" - has moved further away from its militant and socially conservative roots in the early 20th century.
Before Ireland won self-rule and then full independence, the party came to electoral prominence in 1918 when it won 73 seats in the Westminster parliament - including the UK's first-ever woman MP.
But then as now, Sinn Fein refused to recognise British sovereignty in Ireland, and the party's seven MPs do not take their seats in the current House of Commons.
Sinn Fein had 26 seats in the outgoing Stormont assembly, the same as the DUP. Electoral and demographic trends favour the nationalists beyond this Thursday.
Findings of the UK's 10-yearly census, conducted last year, are expected to confirm a nationalist majority while the unionist population ages relatively more quickly, according to Heenan.
But she stressed that there is no popular groundswell to hold a reunification referendum, with even Sinn Fein emphasising policies to tackle surging inflation rather than constitutional change.
"After Brexit, people want stability and want someone to address the cost-of-living crisis and the fact that we have the worst hospital waiting lists in Europe," the analyst said.