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Post by Admin on May 3, 2014 22:48:03 GMT
Gerry Adams has been president of Sinn Fein since 1983 and has always denied membership of the IRA. But he defended its gunmen for a substantial period of the bloody conflict in Northern Ireland. A hate figure in 1980s Britain, he was banned from speaking on British television and radio in October 1988. It meant viewers and listeners could not hear his voice, but that of an actor's instead, reading from a transcript. The prison hunger strikes of 1981, during which one of the inmates, the IRA's former commanding officer Bobby Sands was elected as MP for Fermanagh-South Tyrone, prompted Sinn Fein - and Mr Adams - to move towards electoral politics. In 1980 he said: "The British realise there can be no military victory. It is time that republicans realised there can be no military victory."  And he described the 1984 Grand Hotel, Brighton bombing at the Tory Party conference - which nearly killed Margaret Thatcher - as "a blow for democracy". He said Sands' election "exposed the lie that the hunger strikers - and by extension the IRA and the whole republican movement - had no popular support". He himself was elected to the British Parliament in 1983 as MP for Belfast West.  Mr Adams said the Brighton bombing was a "blow for democracy" As head of the political wing of the IRA, Mr Adams was a key player in the peace process, which concluded with the Belfast Agreement, signed on Good Friday in 1998. President Bill Clinton invited Mr Adams to the White House for St Patrick's Day celebrations in 1995.  And Mr Adams made history by visiting 10 Downing Street at the invitation of the Prime Minister Tony Blair. The peace deal largely ended three decades of violence between republican paramilitaries seeking union with Ireland and mainly loyalist paramilitaries, who wanted to maintain Northern Ireland's position as a part of the UK. The peace deal largely ended three decades of violence between republican paramilitaries seeking union with Ireland and mainly loyalist paramilitaries, who wanted to maintain Northern Ireland's position as a part of the UK. It also paved the way for an end to the IRA's armed campaign in 2005 when it pledged to dump its arms and commit to a political solution which culminated with a power-sharing government in Northern Ireland. |
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Post by Admin on May 4, 2014 20:58:14 GMT
The arrest of Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams is part of an effort by some police officers to "settle old scores", NI's deputy first minister has said. Mr Adams spent a third night in police custody in connection with the 1972 murder of mother-of-10 Jean McConville. Mr Adams, 65, denies any involvement.  On Saturday afternoon, senior members of Sinn Féin attended the rally at Albert Street off the Falls Road in Mr Adams former constituency of west Belfast, seeking the release of Mr Adams. Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness of Sinn Féin said the crowd was "there to show solidarity" with Mr Adams. Sinn Féin has claimed the arrest was deliberately timed ahead of elections in three weeks' time. The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) said it showed no-one was above the law.Baroness Nuala O'Loan, a former police ombudsman who investigated Jean McConville's murder, denied the service had become politicised.  Jean McConville, a widowed mother of 10, was abducted and murdered by the IRA in December 1972 Mrs McConville, a 37-year-old widow and mother of 10, was abducted and shot by the IRA. Her body was recovered from a beach in County Louth in 2003. She is one of Northern Ireland's Disappeared, those who were abducted, murdered and buried in secret by republicans during the Troubles. She was kidnapped in front of her children after being wrongly accused of being an informer - a claim that was dismissed after an official investigation by the Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman.  Last month, Ivor Bell, 77, a leader in the Provisional IRA in the 1970s, was charged with aiding and abetting the murder, and there have also been a number of other arrests recently. The case against Mr Bell is based on an interview he allegedly gave to researchers at Boston College in the US. The Boston College tapes are a series of candid, confessional interviews with former loyalist and republican paramilitaries, designed to be an oral history of the Troubles. |
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Post by Admin on May 5, 2014 6:00:13 GMT
 Northern Ireland police released Gerry Adams from custody on Sunday and the Sinn Fein leader sought to calm fears that his four-day detention could destabilize the British province by pledging his support to the peace process. Police arrested Adams on Wednesday over the 1972 murder of Jean McConville, a killing he repeated that he was "innocent of any part" in. His detention had raised tensions among Northern Ireland's power-sharing government and its fragile peace. After Sinn Fein pointed the finger at "dark forces" in the police service and their Protestant partners in government accused it of a "thuggish attempt" at blackmail, a calm Adams toned down the rhetoric and said he supported the police.  "My resolve remains as strong as ever, that is to build the peace, not to let this put us off. It's our future. The past is the past," Adams told a news conference attended by about 150 cheering supporters in a hotel in west Belfast. The old guard which is against change, whether it is in the PSNI (Police Service of Northern Ireland) leadership, within elements of Unionism or the far fringes of self-proclaimed, pseudo-republicans, they can't win. I'm an Irish republican. I want to live in a peaceful Ireland. I've never dissociated myself from the IRA and I never will, but I am glad that I and others have created a peaceful and democratic way forward for everyone. The IRA is gone, finished." |
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Post by Admin on May 26, 2014 15:42:44 GMT
 Sinn Féin showed this weekend there is more than one way to stage a “spectacular”. Not even halfway through the count and party leaders were already admiring their handiwork. “That landscape is changed, and changed utterly,” marvelled Gerry Adams. “Something profound has happened,” declared Mary Lou. On a national level, the party didn’t do as well as might have been expected. But that’s a minor inconvenience when set against an absolutely stunning performance in Dublin. Sinn Féin (screamingly mainstream now but trying desperately to hide in the closet) had the other establishment parties reeling. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil supporters were shocked. These would be the ones you see at counts: wheezingly amiable men in well-pressed smart-casual attire and expensively handbagged women dressed for gossip and a cocktail party. “They topped the poll in Dundrum, for God’s sake!” The electoral success brings a step closer Gerry Adams' strategic plan to be in government on both sides of the Irish border by 2016 – the centenary of the Easter Rising. It also suggests that his recent arrest in connection with the IRA's kidnapping, killing and secret burial of Jean McConville did not seriously damage Sinn Féin's election campaign. But the overall unionist vote in Northern Ireland also held up, with the Democratic Unionist party winning 130 seats compared with Sinn Féin, which returns to the new council chambers with 105 seats.  Sinn Fein's Lynn Boylan is elected as an MEP for Dublin in European Parliamentary elections count at the RDS in Dublin Despite the massive controversy over the arrest of Gerry Adams during the election campaign, Sinn Fein continues its march on the south and is on course to triple its council seats in the Republic. And in what has been dubbed Independents Day, non-party aligned candidates have swept to power across the country taking more than a quarter of the seats so far. With more than half of the 949 council seats filled, senior government partner Fine Gael and sworn enemies Fianna Fail were locked in a battle to be the biggest party in the State at local authority level. |
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Post by Admin on May 27, 2014 15:44:25 GMT
 Sinn Féin can be happiest of all the political parties in the Republic of Ireland with how it performed in both the European and local government elections. It is now the biggest party in Dublin City Council, going from five to 16 of the 63 seats, and is set to have MEPs in all three constituencies. Across the Republic of Ireland, it more or less trebled its number of councillors. The party's message - that people have had enough of the austerity of tax rises and public spending Fianna Fáil did better than expected, increasing it share in the local elections to 25% from 17% in the 2011 general election, when the party went into near meltdown in the wake of the EU-IMF bailout of the almost bankrupt state. But Micheál Martin's party would have liked to have done better in Dublin, where it won nine of the 63 seats.  But Micheál Martin's party would have liked to have done better in Dublin, where it won nine of the 63 seats. Fianna Fáil currently has no parliamentary candidate in the Irish capital and its failure to win a European seat there is bound to be disappointing. In the Dublin West by-election, although Sinn Féin topped the poll, it was the Socialist Party's Ruth Coppinger who was elected after a campaign highlighting her opposition to water charges and the property tax. Her election will be seen by some as proof that Sinn Féin is still not as transfer-friendly as other parties. Gerry Adams' recent arrest may have been a factor in this.  Eamon Gilmore "bowed to the inevitable and resigned" The Fine Gael and Labour parties are licking their political wounds. The coalition seems to have lost its way since exiting the bailout, with a number of controversies of its own making engulfing it, not least of which was one about police whistleblowers. Labour ministers have complained that they got 19% of the vote in the general election but are getting 90% of the blame for implementing the EU-IMF deal negotiated by Fianna Fáil and the Greens. But with a 7% share in the local elections and losing all three MEP seats, questions were quickly being asked about Eamon Gilmore's continued leadership. He bowed to the inevitable and resigned. In the past, political scientists in the Republic used to talk of a two-and-a-half party system - Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour. Now it's more like a three-and-two bits system - Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and Sinn Féin with the Labour party and the many and varied Independents making up the bits. Politics in Ireland are going to get a lot more interesting. |
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