This article looks at the backchannel dialogue that took place between the Provisional IRA and the British government from 1972 to 1975, a time when violence was at its peak. Interest in this notoriously murky subject has grown in recent years. Articles, several book-length narrative histories and a biography have covered its various aspects. But, using new archival and oral sources (including an exclusive interview with a member of the British 1975 talks-team), a narrative of the backchannels is presented before a new interpretation is given. Above all this study concludes that, behind its hard-line rhetoric and uncompromising violence, a significant element of the Provisional IRA was interested in, and actively explored, a political solution to the conflict within months of the start of the Troubles.