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| {{Infobox Politician | name=Gerry Adams MP MLA | |||
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| | birth_date={{birth date and age|1948|10|6}} | |||
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| | spouse=Colette McArdle | |||
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| NO SURRENDER | |||
| '''Gerard Adams''' (] '''Gearóid Mac Ádhaimh'''<ref> — Sinn Féin press release, ] 2004.</ref>; born ], ]) is an ] politician and ] ] ] for ]. He is President of ], which became the largest nationalist, republican or pro-] political party in ] in the ]. | |||
| ==Introduction== | |||
| Gerry Adams is generally seen as a spokesman for the ''Irish republican movement'' which encompasses Sinn Féin and the ] ] (Provisional IRA), an illegal paramilitary organisation in the ] and the ]. (However, he does not represent many Republicans, such as those in ] or the ].) | |||
| Senior political, security and media figures, including the ] in the ] assert that, from the ] until mid-2005, Adams was a member of the Provisional IRA's governing ] <ref name="ira"> by Angelique Chrisafis, ''The Guardian'', 21 February 2005</ref>. He has also been accused of being the IRA commander in ] during the 1970s. Adams has denied that he has ever been a member of the IRA, although it is widely believed that he was. | |||
| From the late 1980s, Adams was an important figure in the ], initially following contact by the then ] (SDLP) leader ] and subsequently with the ] and ] governments and then other parties. In 2005, the Provisional IRA indicated that its war was over and, barring hard line elements, the republican movement is now exclusively committed to democratic politics. Under Adams, Sinn Féin changed its traditional policy of abstentionism towards Leinster House in 1986 and later to take seats in the ], although the party retains a policy of abstentionism towards Westminster. | |||
| For three years, it participated in the ] executive committee (cabinet) in ], where it shared powers with the ] and the SDLP. (The ] appointed two ministers but did not sit in the committee in protest at the presence of Sinn Féin.) | |||
| ==Background== | |||
| Gerry Adams was born in ] into an ] ] family, consisting of 10 children who survived infancy, 5 boys, 5 girls and their parents, ] and Annie Hannaway. | |||
| Gerry Sr. and Annie came from strong republican backgrounds. Adams's grandfather, also Gerry Adams, had been a member of the ] (IRB) during the ]. Two of Adams's uncles, Dominic and Patrick Adams, had being interned by the governments in Belfast and Dublin. Although it is reported that his uncle Dominic was a one-time ], J. Bowyer Bell, in his widely respected book, ''The Secret Army: The IRA 1916'' (Irish Academy Press), states that Dominic Adams was a senior figure in the IRA of the mid-1940s. Gerry Sr. joined the IRA aged sixteen; in 1942 he participated in an IRA ambush on a ] (RUC) patrol but was himself shot, arrested and sentenced to eight years imprisonment. | |||
| Adams's maternal great-grandfather, Michael Hannaway, was a member of the ] during their dynamiting campaign in England in the 1860s and 1870s. Michael's son, Billy, was election agent for ] in 1918 in West Belfast but refused to follow deV into democratic and constitutional politics upon the formation of ]. Annie Hannaway was a member of ], the women's branch of the IRA. Three of her brothers (Alfie, Liam and Tommy) were known IRA members. | |||
| Yet as a result of the IRA being outlawed north and south of the border, and the many difficulties faced by its members - trouble finding work, lengthy terms in jail, lack of support among the larger Irish community - hardcore republicans were isolated and shunned even with their own community: | |||
| ''"West Belfast republicanism was dominated by three families: the Adamses, the Hannaways, and the Burnses. They were all intermarried, the consequence of the imprisonment of their male members. When figures like Gerry Adams sr. emerged after having served their jail terms, they found girls of a marriageable age either already spoken for or reluctant to marry into the IRA. Inevitably they drifted into relationships with the sisters of their IRA comrades.... The IRA in places like West Belfast... grew heavily dependent on a small, often interrelated network of extended families... the result was that republican involvement tended to be an inherited rather than acquired activity... would pass on to their children their political views as well as a special, exclusive sense of shared suffering".'' | |||
| Adams attended ] on the Falls Road where he was taught by the De La Salle ]. He then attended ] after passing the ] exam in ]. He left St. Mary's with six ], and became a ]tender, but became increasingly involved in the Irish republican movement, joining Sinn Féin and ] in ]. | |||
| ===IRA Volunteer?=== | |||
| Adams has stated repeatedly that he has never been a member of the ] (IRA) . This is a controversial position given much evidence to the contrary: | |||
| * British and Irish ] released under the "]" named him as a senior IRA figure in the early 1970s{{fact}}. | |||
| * In January 1973, Adams was photographed at the funeral of IRA man Francis Liggett dressed in the IRA's black beret marching alongside the coffin with other IRA members <ref name="iecho"> by Jack Holland, ''The Irish Echo'', July 2002</ref>. In 2002, ], convicted for being part of a bomb team that attacked London in March 1973, said in public that Gerry Adams was "my commanding officer" at that time <ref name="iecho"/>. | |||
| * In early 1977, Adams went to the home of a Belfast journalist who lived near Turf Lodge and worked for the BBC "Spotlight" program. He presented himself as representing the Belfast Brigade of the Provisional IRA <ref name="iecho"/>. | |||
| * He was arrested after the ] in ] ] (in which 12 Protestant civilians were burned to death) and was charged with IRA membership. Adams denied the membership charge, threatened to sue reporters who repeated the charge, and applied for bail. The case went to court but the charges were dismissed. Many senior Republicans at that time were surprised by Adams's denial of membership, for they had usually taken the approach of offering no comment to such a charge. In this fashion, they offered no information and did not contribute to speculation (see for example pp. 265-66 in Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, The Life and Politics of an Irish Revolutionary}. | |||
| * In 1980, an undercover ] officer followed Adams across the border during an investigation into an IRA ] operation <ref name="iecho"/>. | |||
| * ], a former IRA member, ] and ] informer from ], has claimed he spoke to Adams at IRA meetings in the 1980s. He states that Adams was a battalion quarter-master responsible for weapons, then the age of 22 Adams became Officer Commanding the Second Battalion, Belfast Brigade IRA<ref>p66, The Informer, Sean O'Callaghan</ref>. | |||
| * On ] ], Irish ] Michael McDowell publicly named Adams as a member of the seven-man ruling ] during a radio interview <ref name="ira"/>. According to the ] government, he has been a member for over 20 years, although he has never been convicted of IRA membership and continues to deny it. In July, McDowell said that, according to senior police sources, three Sinn Féin leaders, including Adams, had stepped down from the IRA command in a prelude to a peace move. Adams denied the report. "We can't stand down from a body of which we were not members", he said. | |||
| ==Early republican career== | |||
| In the late 1960s, a civil rights campaign developed in Northern Ireland. Adams, it is reported, was an active supporter. Instead of leading to change, the civil rights movement was met with protests from Loyalist counterdemonstraters. This culminated in August 1969, when Northern Ireland cities like Belfast and Derry erupted in major rioting and British troops had to be called in to bring about peace. Against this backdrop, the Provisional IRA and its political counterpart in Sinn Féin, emerged. Adams was active in Sinn Féin at this time; it is reported that he was also a key figure in the Belfast IRA. In August 1971, ] without trial was introduced in Northern Ireland under the ]. Adams was interned after this on ]. In late June and early July, 1972, the IRA negotiated a short-lived truce with the British and an IRA delegation met with William Whitelaw. The delegation included ] (Chief of Staff), ], ], Ivor Bell, ] and Gerry Adams. The IRA insisted Adams be included in the meeting and he was released from internment to participate. He was re-arrested in July 1973 and interned at ] (Maze) internment camp. After taking part in a IRA-organised escape attempt he was sentenced to a period of imprisonment, which was also served at the Maze. | |||
| In 1983, he became the first Sinn Féin MP elected to the ] since 1918. Following his election (as MP for ]) the ] government lifted a ban on him travelling to ]. In line with Sinn Féin policy, he refused to sit in the House of Commons. | |||
| On ] ], Adams was seriously wounded in an assassination attempt when several ] (UFF) gunmen fired about twenty shots into the car in which he was travelling. After the shooting, under-cover plain clothes police officers seized three suspects who were later convicted and sentenced <ref> BBC News</ref>. One of the three was ]. Adams claimed that the ] had prior knowledge of the attack and allowed it to go ahead. | |||
| ==President of Sinn Féin== | |||
| {{unreferenced|date=June 2006}} | |||
| In 1978, Gerry Adams became joint-vice-president of Sinn Féin and he became a key figure in directing a challenge to the Sinn Féin leadership of President Ruairí Ó Brádaigh and joint-Vice President Daithí O'Connell. Others who supported Adams and were from Belfast included Jim Gibney, Tom Hartley, and Danny Morrison. Some characterize the different approaches as a conflict between a more pragmatic northern leadership which surrounded Adams and the more traditional ] leadership of ], who was President of Provisional Sinn Féin from its inception until 1983. This view misses the complexity of the situation. | |||
| The 1975 IRA-British Truce is often viewed as the event that began the challenge to the original Provisional Sinn Féin leadership, which was said to be Southern-based and dominated by southerners like Ó Brádaigh and O'Connell. However, the Chief of Staff of the IRA at the time, Seamus Twomey, was a senior figure from Belfast. Others in the leadership were also Northern based, including Billy McKee from Belfast. Adams (allegedly) rose to become the most senior figure in the IRA's ] on the basis of his absolute rejection of anything but military action, but this conflicts with the fact that during his time in prison Adams came to reassess his approach and became more political. It is alleged that "provisional" republicanism was founded on its opposition to the ]-inspired "broad front" politics of the ]'s ], but this too is incorrect. | |||
| One of the core reasons that the Provisional IRA and provisional Sinn Féin were founded, in December 1969 and January 1970, respectively, was that people like Ó Brádaigh and O'Connell, and Billy McKee, opposed participation in constitutional politics, the other was the failure of the Goulding leadership to for the defence of nationalist areas. When, at the December 1969 IRA convention and the January 1970 Sinn Féin Ard Fheis the delegates voted to participate in the Dublin (Leinster House), Belfast (Stormont) and London (Westminster) parliaments, the organizations split. Gerry Adams, who had joined the Republican Movement in the early 1960s, did not go with the Provisionals until later in 1970. | |||
| In Long Kesh in the mid-1970s, and writing under the pseudonym '''Brownie''' in '']'', Adams called for increased political activity, especially at a local level, by Republicans. The call resonated with younger Northern people, many of whom had been active in the Provisional IRA but had not necessarily been highly active in Sinn Féin. In 1977, Adams and ] drafted the address of Jimmy Drumm at the Annual Wolfe Tone Commemoration at Bodenstown. The Address was viewed as watershed in that Drumm acknowledged that the war would be a long one and that success depended on political activity that would complement the IRA. For some, this wedding of politics and armed struggle culminated in Danny Morrison's statement at the 1981 Sinn Féin Ard Fheis in which he asked "Who here really believes we can win the war through the Ballot box? But will anyone here object if, with a ballot paper in one hand and the ] in the other, we take power in Ireland". For others, however, the call to link political activity with armed struggle had been clearly defined in Sinn Féin policy and in the Presidential Addresses of Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, but it had not resonated with the young Northerners (It can be argued that Sinn Féin had been trying to link political activity with military activity since at least the late 1950s). | |||
| Ironically, while Adams was advocating that the Movement needed more involvement in politics, he was one of the key opponents of Sinn Féin putting forward a candidate for the first election to the European Parliament, in 1979. Even after the election of Bobby Sands as MP for Fermanagh/South Tyrone, a part of the mass mobilization associated with the 1981 Irish Hunger Strikes by republican prisoners in the '']'' of the ] prison (known as ] by Republicans), Adams was cautious about political involvement by Sinn Féin. Charles Haughey, the Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland, called an election for June of 1981. At an Ard Chomhairle meeting Adams recommended that they contest only four constituencies. Instead, H-Block/Armagh Candidates contested nine constituencies and elected two TDs. This, along with the election of Bobby Sands, was precursor to the a big electoral breakthrough in elections in 1982 to the Northern Ireland Assembly. Adams, Danny Morrison, Martin McGuinness, Jim McAllister, and ] were elected as abstentionists. Because of a fear of being outflanked by Sinn Féin, the SDLP with 14 elected representatives, also abstained from participating in the Assembly and it was a failure. The 1982 election was followed by the 1983 Westminster election, in which Sinn Féin's increased and Gerry Adams was elected, as an abstentionist, as MP for West Belfast. It was in 1983 that Ruairí Ó Brádaigh resigned as President of Sinn Féin and was succeeded by Gerry Adams. | |||
| Republicans had long claimed that the only legitimate Irish state was the ] declared in the Proclamation of the Republic of 1916, which they considered to be still in existence. In their view, the legitimate government was the ], which had been vested with the authority of that Republic in 1938 (prior to the ]) by the last remaining anti-] deputies of the ]. Adams continued to adhere to this claim of republican political legitimacy until quite recently - however in his 2005 speech to the Sinn Féin ] he explicitly rejected it. | |||
| As a result of this non-recognition, Sinn Féin had abstained from taking any of the seats they won in the British or Irish parliaments. At its 1986 Ard Fheis, Sinn Féin delegates passed a resolution to amend the rules and constitution that would allow its members to sit in the Dublin parliament (Leinster House/Dáil Éireann). At this, ] led a small walkout which led to the creation of ], just as Ó Brádaigh had done twelve years earlier with the creation of provisional Sinn Féin. The defeated minority insisted that they were the real Sinn Féin republicans. | |||
| Adams' leadership of Sinn Féin was supported by a Northern-based cadre that included people like ] and ]. Adams and others, over time, pointed to Sinn Féin electoral successes in the early and mid-1980s, when hunger strikers ] and ] were elected to the ] and ] respectively, and they advocated that Sinn Féin become increasingly political and base its influence on electoral politics rather than paramilitarism. The electoral effects of this strategy were shown later by the election of Adams and McGuinness to the House of Commons. | |||
| ===Voice ban=== | |||
| In popular consciousness in Britain, Adams is primarily remembered during the latter part of this period for the ban on the media broadcast of his voice (the ban actually covered all ] organizations and unionist terrorist organizations, but in practice Adams was the only one prominent enough to appear regularly on TV). This ban was imposed by the then prime minister ] on October 19, 1988, the reason given being to "deny terrorists the oxygen of publicity" after the BBC interviewed ] <ref>, By Michael Foley ''The Irish Times'', 17 September 1994</ref>. | |||
| A similar ban, known as ], had been law in the Republic of Ireland since the 1970s. However media outlets soon found ways around the ban, initially by the use of subtitles, but later and more commonly by the use of an actor reading his words over the images of him speaking. | |||
| This ban was much lampooned in cartoons and satirical TV shows, notably '']'', and in ] (as being required to inhale helium to "subtract credibility"), and was criticized by ] organizations worldwide and British media personalties, including BBC Director General ] and BBC foreign editor ]. The ban was lifted by Prime Minister ] on ] ]. It caused a ripple of media attention when people discovered that Adams sounded exactly like ] the actor who had been voicing over his words in TV broadcasts. | |||
| ==Moving into mainstream politics== | |||
| Sinn Féin continued its policy of refusing to sit in the ] parliament even after Adams won the ]. He lost his seat to ] of the ] (SDLP) in the ]. However, he easily regained it at the next election in May ]. | |||
| Under Adams, Sinn Féin appeared to move away from being a political voice of the Provisional IRA to becoming a professionally organized political party in both ] and the ]. | |||
| SDLP leader ], MP, identified the possibility that a negotiated settlement might be possible and began secret talks with Adams in 1988. These discussions led to unofficial contacts with the British ] under the ], ], and with the government of the Republic under ] – although both governments maintained in public that they would not negotiate with "terrorists" . | |||
| These talks provided the groundwork for what was later to be the ], as well as the milestone ] and the ]. | |||
| These negotiations led to the IRA ceasefire in August 1994. Irish ] ] (who had replaced Haughey) and who had played a key role in the Hume/Adams dialogue through his Special Advisor ], regarded the ceasefire as permanent. However the slow pace of developments, contributed in part to the (wider) political difficulties of the British government of ] and consequent reliance on ] votes in the House of Commons, led the IRA to end its ceasefire and resume the campaign. | |||
| A restituted ceasefire later followed, as part of the negotiations strategy, which saw teams from the British and Irish governments, the ], the SDLP, ] and representatives of ] paramilitary organizations, under the chairmanship of former ] Senator Mitchell, produced the ] (also called the ''Good Friday Agreement'' as it was signed on ], 1998). Under the agreement, structures were created reflecting the Irish and British identities of the people of Ireland, with a ] and a ] created. | |||
| Articles 2 and 3 of the Republic's constitution, '']'', which claimed sovereignty over all of Ireland, were reworded, and a power-sharing Executive Committee was provided for. As part of their deal Sinn Féin agreed to abandon its abstentionist policy regarding a "six-county parliament", as a result taking seats in the new ]-based Assembly and running the education and health and social services ministries in the power-sharing government. | |||
| Opponents in Republican Sinn Féin accused Sinn Féin of "selling out" by agreeing to participate in what it called "] assemblies" in the Republic and Northern Ireland. However Gerry Adams insisted that the Belfast Agreement provided a mechanism to deliver a united Ireland by non-violent and constitutional means, much as ] had said of the ] nearly 80 years earlier. | |||
| When Sinn Féin came to nominate its two ministers to the Executive Council, the party, like the SDLP and the ] chose for tactical reasons not to include its leader among its ministers. (When later the SDLP chose a new leader, it selected one of its ministers, ], who then opted to remain in the Committee.) | |||
| Adams remains the President of Sinn Féin, with ] serving as Sinn Féin parliamentary leader in Dáil Éireann, and ] the party's chief negotiator and effective party head in the Northern Ireland Assembly. His son, Gearoid is a primary school teacher and has represented Co. Antrim in gaelic football. | |||
| ==Fresh murder question raised== | |||
| In October 2006, it was alleged that Adams's finger and hand-prints were found on a stolen car allegedly used during the murders of RUC men Cecil Cunningham (46) and John Haslett (21) in 1971.<ref> by Christopher Morgan and Liam Clarke, ''The Times'', 1 October 2006</ref><ref> by Alan Murray, ''The Sunday Independent'', 1 October 2006</ref> However, no link between Adams and the killings, or between the burned out car and the killings, has been shown. The link is, therefore, entirely speculative. | |||
| ==References== | |||
| <references /> | |||
| ==Published works== | |||
| *''Falls Memories'', 1982 | |||
| *''The Politics of Irish Freedom'', 1986 | |||
| *''A Pathway to Peace'', 1988 | |||
| *''An Irish Journal'' | |||
| *''An Irish Voice'' | |||
| *''Cage Eleven'', 1990 | |||
| *''The Street and Other Stories'', 1992 | |||
| *''Free Ireland: Towards a Lasting Peace'', 1995 | |||
| *''Before the Dawn'', 1996, Brandon Books, ISBN 0-434-00341-7 | |||
| *''Selected Writings'' | |||
| *''Who Fears to Speak...?'' | |||
| *''Hope and History'', 2003, Brandon Books, ISBN 0-86322-330-3 | |||
| ==See also== | |||
| *] | |||
| *] | |||
| *] | |||
| *] | |||
| *] | |||
| *] | |||
| *J. Bowyer Bell. ''The Secret Army: The IRA 1916 -''. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1979. | |||
| *Colm Keena. ''A Biography of Gerry Adams''. Cork, Ireland: Mercier Press, 1990. | |||
| *Ed Moloney. ''A Secret History of the IRA''. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2002. | |||
| *O'Callaghan, Sean. ''The Informer''. Corgi. 1999. ISBN 0-552-14607-2 | |||
| *Robert W. White. ''Ruairi O Bradaigh, the Life and Politics of an Irish Revolutionary''. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006. | |||
| ==External links== | |||
| * official profile | |||
| * | |||
| * | |||
| * voting record | |||
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Revision as of 17:03, 3 January 2007
TERRORIST
NO SURRENDER