I first met the new president of Republican Sinn Fein (RSF), Des Dalton, at the 'party' Ard Fheis 10 years ago. I had been scanning the room, watching the wheezing old men clutching walking sticks and cough medicine, muttering to themselves about the first Dail and how the young had forgotten the old ballads.

This, in a small function room in a south Dublin hotel, was the entire extent of the party - clapped-out, run-down, grey, nursing home revolutionaries whining on about political disputes long-since forgotten by 99.9% of the Irish public.

I told Dalton that I thought his party membership was very old and that he had few young members. He sighed, pushed back his glasses and smiled slightly.

"Well," he said. "The feeling at the time of the split was that the other side got Gerry Adams - we got geriatrics."

Dalton's uneasy smile broadened. In spite of his politics, I couldn't help but like him.

The cranky granddads and forlorn middle-aged men that make up his party may think they can win over the Irish public, but Dalton certainly doesn't.

He seemed only too well-aware that - without the gun to give it edge - Republican Sinn Fein is a worn-out joke.

Martin McGuinness warned their members of their fate minutes before they walked out of the Sinn Fein Ard Fheis in 1986.

"If you allow yourselves to be led out of this hall today the only place you're going is home," he said, to jeers from Ruairi O'Bradaigh and a hoary collection of southern pensioners - furious that Sinn Fein would take seats in the Republic's partitionist parliament.

Long-since left behind by the Provisionals' rush for Stormont, the Dail and well-appointed summer houses, Republican Sinn Fein's southern, old-style republican membership could only muster a single county councillor in any subsequent local election.

They had a legacy Sinn Fein seat in Donegal, but quickly lost that. They also had a left-over Sinn Fein councillor in Longford, but those voters also copped on that they were voting for the wrong Sinn Fein and voted him out.

Then they had no representation at all - until last time around.

After years and years of trying, the party final scrapped into Galway county council this year - their only representation in the whole country.

If you want to see futility personified, go to YouTube and watch Dalton being interviewed after he was roundly defeated, yet again, for a town council seat in Athy, Co Kildare in the 2009 local elections. He shrugs, he sighs, he admits that it wasn't to be; the people of Athy had spoken.

Here he is, the newly-elected president of a political party and he can't even win a seat on his town council. If the dissidents need motivation to dissolve their party and take up a new hobby, Des Dalton's stinging online humiliation sums it up.

What is most extraordinary is that many members of Dalton's own family don't even give him their first vote.

His brother, Mark, is a well-known Fianna Fail politician in Athy - easily elected at every election. Des Dalton is a smart man, in spite of his dinosaur politics.

I could see that in the questions posed by the Garda Special Branch officers outside the Ard Fheis, who repeatedly asked me if he had been elected to the ruling council of the party.

They feared someone with an ounce of intelligence ruling over Ireland's only militant political party, but maybe someone with a brain might be what it takes to finally force these tired old men to admit defeat.

Coming from a Fianna Fail background, it should have hit Des Dalton by now that southern voters don't object to him or his family - it's the rancid, utterly futile politics of Republican Sinn Fein that they almost unanimously reject.

As the newly elected president of Ireland's most unsuccessful party, he should be as honest to his miniscule band of wizened granddads as he was with me 10 years ago. He should call an emergency meeting, tell his supporters to switch up their hearing aids and listen closely.

It's time to pass a motion accepting that violent republicanism is outrageously undemocratic.

Then, to save his supporters from shock-induced heart failure, he should tell them to sit back, have a few sips of Ovaltine and take a nice long nap. It's like deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness once told you, comrades: you're going nowhere but home.

Background

What is Republican Sinn Fein?

Republican Sinn Fein (RSF) formed in 1986 after a split in Provisional Sinn Fein when Ruairi O Bradaigh walked out in protest at the ending of the policy of abstentionism.

Why is it in the news now?

Des Dalton was elected president of RSF last week in succession to O Bradaigh, who retired through age and ill-health.

Who does it represent?

The party sees itself as the representative of "traditional" Irish republicanism. It's membership is largely in the Republic, though the electorate remains largely unimpressed with RSF's policies.

What relationship does RSF have with other dissidents?

RSF views itself as part of the wider republican movement. It denies it is the political wing of the Continuity IRA (CIRA), which admitted responsibility for murdering Constable Stephen Carroll in March - the first police casualty since 1998. For its part, CIRA denies being the military wing of RSF. However, the US State Department's list of Foreign Terrorist Organisations states: "CIRA is a terrorist group formed as the armed wing of RSF. 'Continuity' refers to the group's belief that it is carrying on the original IRA's goal of forcing the British out of Northern Ireland."