Interview in the Mail with Gerry Adams… February 19, 2011
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish Politics, Northern Ireland, Sinn Féin, The Left.trackback
…Interesting interview with Adams in today’s Mail conducted by Jason O’Toole.
Some aspects of his personal life expanded upon, including the miscarriage his wife and he suffered in the early 1970s, and the cancer she has had to deal with over the last few years. And while he’s doesn’t go into details about his brother Liam and the abuse of his niece he does engage to some degree with the topic:
On the subject of his brother Liam, who is fighting an extradition case to block the courts here from sending him back to Belfast to face charges of sexually abusing his own daughter, all Adams will understandably say is: ‘I’ve been advised by the police not to make any public comment on this because it is subject to proceedings. So, I’m content to leave it there.’
However, when I ask how his family are now handing this difficult ‘per¬sonal issue’, over one year on from when it was first revealed, he says: ‘Everybody has to find their own path to recovery through all of this, but I think it is very important to say that – one, there is life beyond abuse. People can survive it. And two – the victim is never to blame. Anybody out there who has been subjected to abuse should comfort themselves by the fact that they are not to blame and they can come out of this with proper help and support and love.’
He also seems to have been prepared for the media firestorm that has attempted to engulf him:
He’s clearly annoyed that the media focus is on his past rather than allowing him to focus on getting across Sinn Féin policy.
‘There are people who write things about me which are totally untrue. There’s a madness out there. You have to just accept it and try not to take it personally and get on with your business. Crazy stuff. The wonderful thing about it is that the voters are the people who make the decisions, not the journalists who write these pieces. I think that’s why you have to be rooted. I actually feel sorry for people who end up being so-called celebrities and they nearly be¬come media junkies with all this nonsense that’s written about them. I don’t read a lot of the papers that engage in that sort of thing.’
He continues to reject the allegations about Jean McConville:
‘The charges are untrue; they are very, very serious to make against any person. I reject all of that. I haven’t read the book. I’ve read the media extracts of it. I deny absolutely the various allegations that are made in the book. And poor Brendan was a very, very good friend of mine for a long time. It’s a bit difficult to deal with accusations made from a person who is now dead, so I don’t bother, I go on.’
But he ‘absolutely’ agrees that her death was a shameful episode in the IRA’s dark history.
‘This was an injustice done by republicans. So, there have been lots of injustices in the course of the conflict. But when inflicted by republicans, it has to be a matter of regret for other republicans. We’re the people who would try to stand up for people against British injustice and you can’t do that, in fairness, unless you’re prepared to have the same position on unjust things when they’re committed by the IRA.
‘So, I do regret that it happened. But, at the same time, I’ve met many of Jean McConville’s family, her sons and Helen particularly. And what happened to them shouldn’t have happened to them. It’s as simple and straightforward as that.’
And he steps away from the issue of membership of the Army Council:
Though he has, once again, denied the accusation that he was on the Army Council, he says he ‘accepts responsibility’ for playing a ‘leader¬ship’ role in the Northern conflict.
‘For better or worse, I’m in a leader¬ship position, okay? So, I accept responsibility. I think during the con¬flict in the North, we did the right thing in standing up to the British. We did the right thing in standing up for our communities. Dublin didn’t help us. There was nobody there to intervene. And, in the course of that, dreadful things happened. I’m sorry those dreadful things happened. Very brave things happened as well.
‘But the important thing is that I wouldn’t distance myself from any of that. If somebody says to me, “Were you responsible in terms of that conflict?” Yes, of course I was – against all the other people who, either by taking other sides or by engaging in censorship or all that went with it, or by standing idly by. Of course, we are all responsible.
‘I’ve never distanced myself from the IRA. At the height of the conflict, I was one of those who did interviews and defended actions if I thought it was the right thing and, on other occasions, condemned actions when I thought they were wrong, or at least I was very critical of some actions
Some of which are overtly political attacks:
And what about the accusations that, as someone who until recently hadn’t lived in the Republic, Adams is nothing more than a ‘blow in’, parachuted into the constituency to win Sinn Féin a seat?
‘I don’t see it like that. I know who I am and where I’m from and my record’s there for people to make their own judgments. Obviously, I’m not from that constituency but everybody knows that; I’m not pretending to be from the constituency.
‘I bring a lot of experience to the particular needs of Louth and east Meath. The local issues are the national issues – it’s unemployment; it’s health, the stripping away of hospital services; it’s the failure to properly develop the tourism potential – it’s a coastal area.’
There’s a little about his past:
Adams admits that he is surprised he managed to stay alive throughout the Troubles. In 1984, he almost died when he was shot in the neck, shoulder and arm – his car was hit with 20 bullets by gunmen, who followed him from a court case.
‘It was a set-up. I have a very acute sixth sense, so I knew there was something wrong when I was in the courthouse and I asked my solicitor could he arrange for us to stay in the courthouse. I felt we were very exposed. There was something. My antenna was up. And this has happened to me a dozen times in my life, where I just knew that there was something not right. Just your instinct. We eventually then phoned up our office and said, “Is there anybody about to give us a lift?”
After the shooting happened, I remember saying to the driver, “Drive! Go through the lights. Drive”. The guy behind me was hit in the face and was in pain. And I bent over and said an act of contrition in his ear.
For those who don’t align with his politics one suspects that nothing will satisfy them and for those who do one suspects that little will shake their trust in him.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Bosca and Northern Ireland, Campaigntrail.ie. Campaigntrail.ie said: Interview in the Mail with Gerry Adams…: …Interesting enough interview with Adams in today’s Mail conducted by J… http://bit.ly/gaCV51 [...]
This Irish Times article is a good review of how the issue was debated on radio stations in the last few days :
Adams’s past not such a burning issue
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2011/0219/1224290215124.html
I thought Adams came across very well in this Mail piece today. It’s quite a long interview actually. In fairness, the paper gave him a lot of space.
Me thinks the IT piece as is tongue-in-cheek… particularly last par of it
John Boland offers Gerry Adams an excellent suggestion
“Should Gerry Adams just tell a porkie pie?”
Read more: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/should-gerry-adams-just-tell-a-porkie-pie-15089252.html#ixzz1EPgNjwua
Adams can follow the example of another ex-member of the republican movement, current Labour Party Leader Eamon Gilmore :
“a few months back on the ‘Marian Finucane Show’, Eamon Gilmore pretended, or maybe just forgot, that he’d ever been a member of Official Sinn Fein, and that landed him in all sorts of bother until he suddenly remembered that indeed he had once been a Stickie.
And guess what — even those who’d been cheesed off by his temporary amnesia didn’t give two hoots.”
Is Gerry Adams denying being a member of PSF or PIRA,Gilmore being a member of OSF was nothing to be ashamed about nor was it against the law.Non runner of a comparison.Half the Labour party front bench were members of OSF .There was many a member of PSF who had nothing to do with PIRA,or is he saying they were one and the same thing.
And of course being a member of the Official IRA was forbidden to members of Official Sinn Fein.
Then I suppose Gilmore and Co are members of the IMF/EU fifth column.
Half the Labour front bench, and others like De Rossa, were members of OIRA not just OSF
Like Adams, they lie through their teeth and tell us they were never in it
The difference is that Adams while denying membership in the IRA does not distance himself from their actions and accepts responsibility for their mistakes from, “a leadership position in the republican movement”. That is quite a difference.
Excellent point. It’s a crucial distinction. When I was in WP there was very little, in the South, discussion let alone public acknowledgement of events that had taken place in the past. Granted there was Bodenstown, etc, but that was sort of macro stuff that for a republican party made sense.
I think actually it’s to the credit of the WP that in more recent times there’s been a much more engaged effort to come to terms with their past.
As regards the membership or otherwise of certain contemporary politicians with entities in the past, would people mind just tamping that discussion down a little bit in the sense of pointing towards personalities. This site doesn’t have deep pockets.
As regards the broader issue given that many of those who one might expect to have a knowledge of such matters denied any during their time in the WP, and afterwards, who is genuinely surprised that that continues to be evident in the present period?
It was an embarrassment to be shrugged off (and also there was that really pernicious Eoghan Harris like line of ‘the danger of influencing young ‘men”… etc..).
Returning briefly to SF. I was talking to a friend the other day who was very scornful of certain commemorations of people who he was sure would have split from SF during the peace process. Granted it’s difficult to know how people would act retrospectively, but given that what seems to be the majority of their activists went with the peace process line it seems reasonable to think that many would have. On the other hand I’m not convinced it’s dishonest to say look back at for example Sands etc and say this was something that influenced them to follow certain paths, whatever about where Sands might or might not have gone.
The issue of various groupings looking to “claim” various republican “martyrs” is interesting. For example, on this site it has been said that Sean South was not a Republican, but a Catholic nationalist and yet you can read “true Republicans” in the form of Sean Garland stating emphatically that South would have gone with the Officials. Not sure if that would have been enough to make SS a “true Republican”.
I remember awhile ago (over a year) reading that certain RSF cumanns got into trouble with the leadership due to the fact that they were naming their cumanns after PIRA volunteers killed post ’86 (again ruling them out as “true Republicans”).
Being that the Provisional campaign lasted thirty years there is no doubt a great swath of opinion and various view points within the movement. There can be no doubt that many supporters and volunteers over the last decade or have become disillusioned and the springing up of various armed factions and a resurgence of “strictly political” forces opposed to PSF is a sign of that discontent.
The fact that no “militarist faction” or protest group (yes eirigi I’m talking about you) has been able to seriously counter them would indicate to me that at least for now PSF can continue to claim their fallen with credibility.
An “Anybody But Adams” Leaflet from Louth
http://irishelectionliterature.wordpress.com/2011/02/20/aba-anybody-but-adams-jean-or-gerry-the-choice-is-yours-leaflet-from-louth-2011-general-election/
[...] 2.30pm Dundalk: Market Square, Speaker Gerry Adams [...]
Sean South – a possible sticky !!!! Sean South was a member of Maria Duce – a crypto-fascist Roman Catholic organisation.
Don’t shoot the messanger.
But also remember Larkin,
“I belong to the Catholic Church. I stand by the Cross and the Bible and I stand by Marx and his Manifesto. I believe in the creed of the Church, apostolic, Catholic, and Roman. I believe in its saints and its martyrs, their struggles and the sufferings of my people. The history of Ireland is full of the same spirit, the same struggles, the same sufferings, the struggles and sufferings of my people. In my land this is not held against a socialist. It speaks for him. I defy any man here or anywhere to challenge my standing as a Catholic, as a socialist, or as a revolutionist. We of the Irish Citizen’s Army take communion before we go into battle. We confess our sins. We seek absolution. If a bullet strikes, we hope to have the last rites administered to us before our souls leave our bodies. We do not let the Church stand in the way of our struggle, but neither do we let our struggle stand in the way of the Church.”
Not always as cut and dry as folks on either side would have it.
Very interesting quote. When and where did he say that?
I took it off of Malcolm Redfellow’s World Service. An excellent blog if there ever was one. I’ve asked for a citation which I am sure will be forthcoming.
That quote, or a shorter, slightly different version of it, is in Emmet Larkin’s biography. But Jim Larkin was only saying that many Irish socialists were devout Catholics and saw no problem in that. That’s not in the smae league as Maria Duce which wanted Catholicism to be proclaimed as the official state religion. That puts Sean South a good bit to the right of your average practising mass-goer even in the Ireland of the 50′s.
Several people who went on to be leading stickies had extremist catholic views in their misguided youth. South family also stayed with the movement
Most people in the 50s and 60s held strong catholic views,The few who stood against that in those early days will always be ledgend.Particularly those that fought in Spain.
True, though it’s also fair to say that there was an ability for many Republicans to be able to detach the religious from the political in a way which the broader society often didn’t seem to be able to do successfully. In other words you could be a Catholic [in certain cases even a'strong' one] and yet also dissent from Catholic teachings in various areas – most obviously the political.
Which in a way has become the societal norm – no?
I remember my father telling me one time that my generation would never be able to understand the central role religion played in people’s lives in the fifties and sixties. He reckoned it was just so all pervasive as to be beyond the imagination of anyone who hadn’t lived through the era.
The word ‘republican’, as in ‘Irish republican movement, means little more than not being a supporter of monarchy.
The Irish republican movement has included fascists such as Sean South and Gerry McGeough but also radical, left-wing internationalists such as Frank Ryan.
Using the appellation ‘republican’ to distinguish on the basis of ideology is meaningless.