Will the Real IRA Leader stand up -

Some will know the name Gerry Adams some will not. In Ireland Gerry Adams is widely viewed as the face of the republican movement. Gerry Adams is the President of Sinn Fein which is the political wing of the republican movement. The IRA is the now ‘decommissioned’ military wing of the republican movement. Gerry Adams has for some strange reason always publicly stated that he was never a member of the IRA. For those of us who were members of the republican movement it is well known that Gerry Adams was a senior member of the IRA in Belfast and that he had a seat at the table of the IRA Army Council. Indeed I can put my hand on my heart and say that in 1984 I was present when Gerry Adams arrived at a venue for a meeting of some of the most senior members of the IRA. I was not a senior member of the IRA but was simply present before the meeting started. Gerry Adams and Brendan ‘Darkie’ Hughes did not leave when the meeting started. I will set out here the reality of Gerry Adams janus-face position in the republican movement.
So it was that the British Army were brought into the north as ‘peace-keepers’. The British army were initially feed and given tea by many grateful Catholics who had suffered so much at the hands of loyalist mobs. Indeed the IRA leadership had initially put in place a no shoot policy in relation to the British Army, this policy was put in place as the British Army were so welcomed initially, however, the IRA had no such policy in relation to Protestants and they continued to murder Protestants at will. Yet as the British army were used to break up no-go areas and were the main body tasked with the Internment of Irish Catholics their role as ‘peace-keeper’ would wear thin quickly. There is no doubt that Internment, the breaking up of no-go areas and the IRA’s own mishaps were insuring that the IRA could not operate at full capacity. It was inability to operate at full capacity that foolishly lead the British and Irish Governments to believe that the IRA could be defeated as the ordinary people turned away from the men of violence. The ordinary people could be bought off with reforms in Stormont and the IRA defeated by isolation and imprisonment, thought the Governments.
The Irish Government under Jack Lynch who had just recovered from the controversy surrounding the supplying of guns to the IRA appeared ready and willing to take on rather than tolerate the IRA. Lynch had been backed into a corner as loyalist terrorists had already moved into the Irish Republic in 1972 and fire bombed hotels in Dublin and the loyalists said they would carry out further attacks if the Irish Government did not stand up to the IRA. The loyalists did return and murder dozens of innocent civilians in Monaghan and Dublin.
At the Sinn Fein Ard Fheis in 1972, the PIRA Chief of Staff, Mac Stiofain was not offering Lynch any hope of compromise when he said there would be no compromise with the British; it was all or nothing, “Brits Out”. Lynch decided it was time to put the Provisionals out of business and he had Mac Stiofain arrested and imprisoned.
In 1973, when Seamus Twomey was arrested Gerry Adams took over as commanding officer of the IRA in Belfast. The Adams leadership was well able to match the body count which occurred under Twomey in 1972 which read, 81 innocent Catholics and 41 innocent Protestants mainly murdered in no warning IRA bomb attacks. In his new book Ed Moloney gives a clear insight into the role played by Adams when Moloney reproduces an interview that he carried out with Brendan ‘Darkie’ Hughes before Brendan died in 2009. Brendan Hughes who was a close friend and comrade of Gerry Adams alleges that Adams was the person who ordered the murder of innocent Mother of ten, Jean Mc Conville, amazon.co.uk/Voices-grave-two-mens-ireland. The sectarian bloodbath was overflowing and the British and Irish Governments were at a loss as to what the next step should be. The sectarian drive of the PIRA and indeed Gerry Adams is best captured by Adams himself in his book A Pathway to Peace http://www.brandonbooks.com/authors.php?authors_id=1
Of all the differences between the Ireland of Tone’s time and the Ireland of today, unquestionably one of the most noticeable – although far from being the most significant – is the changed political attitudes of the mass of Protestants, especially in the North. Instead of forming a cordial union with their fellow Irishmen to run their own country for themselves in their own interests, they find themselves the prisoners of a fossilised, politico-religious sectarianism which is entrenched and institutionalised as an integral part of the imperial administrative system in the six counties[1]
Adams fails to see in his own words the very sectarianism of his own politics in the fact that the deaths of over three thousand mainly innocent people in forty years of republican death and destruction have driven an insurmountable wedge between Protestants and Catholics. Few families in the north’s population of 1.5 million have been left unscathed by both loyalist and republican violence, the deaths of over three thousand, the maiming of tens of thousands, the imprisonment of tens of thousands have left the Protestant community more fundamentally opposed to Irish Unity than the British State could have achieved in another eight hundred years of Imperial rule. Interesting though is that fact that Adams himself would eventually become part of what he described as:
An integral part of the imperial administrative system in the six counties.
While Adams and other members of the republican movement continue to try and attach their brand of republicanism with that of Wolfe Tone there is no link, there is no attachment. Wolfe Tone represented the aspirations of a united Irish people both Protestant and Catholic fighting for a French style Republic free of British Imperialism, modern day militant republicanism does not fall within the shadow of Wolfe Tone’s republic. Adams continues to refer to Wolfe Tone and others as the starters of the unfinished business, as if the work of Wolfe Tone is to be found in the sectarian politics of 20th/21st century Sinn Fein/IRA. In the Sinn Fein document The Evolution of Sinn Fein (1995) this desired linkage to Wolfe Tone and others is made six times, this would not be so noticeable if this were not a one page document.
This attempt by the Adams to claim linage to the old IRA is clearly seen in the re-write of the IRA’s Green Book in 1977. In the 1956 edition of the IRA’s Green Book the authors do not engage in any legitimisation of the armed struggle beyond its historical context of resistance to occupation. The 1977 edition which was written by Gerry Adams and other leading republicans claims direct legitimacy from the members of the second Dail, who transferred their authority to the IRA in 1938 after the takeover of the IRA Army Council by Sean Russell. Antony Mc Antyre a former republican prisoner, now an academic and scholar says that:
The modern republican movement has persistently been the product of BritishState strategies rather than a body which has existed for the sole purpose of completing the unfinished business of uniting Ireland.[2]
Contrary to what Imperialist type motives republicans attribute to the BritishState, it remains in Ireland in response to the Protestant/Unionist demands to remain British. This is a correct analysis and one that was supported in my own research as republicans admit to having recognised that Protestants were the real obstacle to a united Ireland as early as the 1970s. Tugwell states that;
That campaign (IRA violence) would use the international, domestic and economic side effects of armed struggle on the British Government and ‘Public’ to cause the necessary shift from the British state viewing the North of Ireland as an asset to a liability.
Following forty years of sectarian violence resulting in over three thousand deaths, the majority of whom were Northern Irish, the public can now be more clearly defined as being physically and psychologically the British Protestant people of Northern Ireland and psychologically and economically the British people of England, Scotland and Wales. All of whom would eventually see the benefits of a united Ireland unless the sectarian bankruptcy of the republican movement was first realised.
Up until September 1973 an IRA bombing campaign had lasted several months with death and mutilation becoming part of the daily routine for the people of Belfast and Derry. Lynch’s Government had taken a tough line against the men of violence and had initiated a sustained program of anti-terrorist legislation as extreme and as tough as the British response to the men of violence. 1974 began with the Provisionals planting bombs all over the north and in Birmingham (England). The PIRA’s New Year message was;
We look forward with confidence to 1974 as a year which the British rule in Ireland shall be destroyed and the curse of alien power banished from our land for all time.
On the 28th of June the new Northern Ireland elections had returned Twenty-three Official Unionist candidates, twenty-seven loyalist candidates, nineteen SDLP (Catholic), eight Alliance (cross-community) and DUP (loyalist). On Tuesday the 14th of May 1974 at six o’clock in the evening, the Assembly voted forty-four to twenty-eight in favour of Faulkner’s amendment supporting the Sunningdale agreement for reform. The Ulster Workers Council (Protestant/loyalist) announced a province wide strike. The north came to a stand still as Protestants held key positions in all of the utility control centres in the north including electricity and water. Loyalists sent death squads back into the Republic of Ireland once again and on the 17th of May 1974 they exploded bombs in Dublin and Monaghan killing dozens of innocent civilians and injuring hundreds more.
The British Government under Labour Prime Minister, Harold Wilson were not prepared to break the loyalist strike. Intimidation, food shortages, water shortages and electrical shortages continued, Wilson’s inaction had simply made matters worse. Wilson defending the new Northern Ireland Assembly called the loyalists, “Spongers on the British public”. The strength of the loyalist strike proved too much for the constitutional politicians and when Faulkner asked Secretary of State, Rees to talk with the UWC and Rees refused Faulkner and his loyalist colleagues resigned and Sunningdale fell.
Meanwhile the republican movement was again at war within its own ranks. In 1974 the Official IRA lead by Goulding called the PIRA “Fascists” as more splits began to unfold. Republican uncertainty manifested itself into yet another split; on the 8th of December 1974 Seamus Costello and other uncompromising Official IRA members created the IRSP (INLA) yet another republican splinter group. In 1975 members of the INLA killed a number of their former Official IRA comrades. The INLA while small in number would prove to be a ruthless sectarian killing machine, only out done in number and deed by the PIRA.
In 1974 the Official IRA dropped abstentionism to Westminster and the Northern Ireland convention and were now out of the business of violence, at least on any political level. From the 22nd of December 1974 until the 2nd of January 1975 the PIRA called a cease-fire as they were told that if they showed good will talks with the British could take place. Merlyn Rees, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland said on the 20th of December, no specific undertakings had been given. The IRA extended the cease-fire for two weeks, this writer remembers that cease-fire well, but that hope was not to last. Rees refused to talk directly to the IRA and on the 16th of January the IRA returned to violence, having used the cease-fire to get organised and rearmed.
On the 9th of February 1975 the IRA Army Council announced an indefinite cease-fire following discussions with British officials. Loyalists however continued to kill innocent Catholics and the INLA and Official IRA continued to kill each other. The British Government would not or could not give a declaration of intent to withdraw from Northern Ireland and the PIRA continued to use the threat of violence. The loyalists believed that the IRA cease-fire was simply a ploy by the PIRA to get regrouped and rearmed and that a return to full scale violence was only a matter of time. The PIRA wanted the British Government to become persuaders of the Protestant people of Northern Ireland of the benefits of a united Ireland; this was not going to happen in the short term.
The first four chapters of this book have focused on the regression of the republican movement who were constantly falling back into a politico-sectarian blindness coupled by internal feud and disagreement. Their central focus to this point has been the physical and psychological brutality of the Protestant people of Northern Ireland in order to coerce them into a united Ireland. Loyalists are not faultless; however, a clear distinction must be made between ordinary decent hard working Protestants and the small number of criminals who made up the loyalist murder squads.
Chapter 4 Ends - For FREE to read 12 Chapter eBook go to irishrepublicanarmy-ira.blogspot.com


Coming next: A Fairly Secret Army - Chapter 5 – Political Development - Prisons and Hunger Strikes


[1] Page 44 Adams,1988
[2] Page 98 Irish Political Studies, 1995
IRA
IRA. Coming Next
As a footnote to this chapter it is worth noting that Gerry Adams has recently been forced to admit that he knew that his Brother Liam had sexually abused his (Liam's) own daughter Aine from she was a toddler, Gerry has also been forced to admit that his own Father Gerry Adams Snr was a child molester. Yet with this knowledge Gerry Adams continued to allow his brother Liam to remain as a senior member of the republican movement and indeed he gave his father Gerry Snr a full style IRA funeral when he died. When Gerry Adams was asked why he had not mentioned any of this in his auto-biography and why he had painted a cosy profile of his father and brother Liam he said:
"In respect of references to him in my book ‘Before the Dawn’ which deals with my life growing up in west Belfast , I included references to other siblings also. My account of my childhood memories is exactly that. It would have been highly irresponsible and wrong of me to make any reference to the allegations against Liam in the book".