The Armalite and ballot box strategy was a strategy the Irish republican movement pursued in the 1980s and early 1990s in which Sinn Féin dropped election boycott and abstentionism and contested elections in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, while the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) pursued an armed struggle against the British Army, the Royal Ulster Constabulary, and loyalist paramilitary groups. Armalite refers to the AR-15 and AR-18 ArmaLite rifles. The Armalite corporation initially manufactured both, later Colt. The IRA smuggled significant quantities of these rifles into Northern Ireland during the early 1970s, and the "Armalite" became a symbol of republican armed struggle. Through the AR-18's mass use by the IRA and volunteers' love of the weapon for its accuracy and compact nature, the rifle became known as the "Widowmaker". History The strategy emerged after the 1981 Irish hunger strike as a response to the electoral success of Bobby Sands in the April 1981 Fermanagh and South Tyrone by-election and pro-hunger strike campaigners in the Northern Ireland local elections and Republic of Ireland Dáil Éireann elections of the same year. It was first formulated by Sinn Féin organiser Danny Morrison at the party's Ard Fheis (Annual Conference) on 31 October 1981, when he said: The strategy was a mixed success. Sinn Féin had a solid core of 9-13 percent of the vote in Northern Ireland, which gave the party some credibility on the international stage. However, at home, it highlighted the non-violent Social Democratic and Labour Party's (SDLP's) dominance in Northern nationalist politics, while Sinn Féin's vote in the Republic remained tiny once the emotion generated by the 1981 hunger strike subsided. In the longer term, it had two significant political consequences, each of which fed into the emergent Northern Ireland peace process. When the governments of the UK and the Republic of Ireland drafted the Anglo-Irish Agreement, this convinced many in Sinn Féin that it was possible to make political gains without violence. However, Sinn Féin's electoral setbacks, such as the loss of 16 of the party's 59 council seats in 1989, pushed the emphasis of the Republican movement away from the Armalite and towards an election-focused strategy. On 12 August 1994, just 19 days before the first IRA ceasefire, Danny Morrison declared that the Armalite and Ballot Box approach was over, and stated that "different times require different strategies". By that time, a confidential paper had