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Page 14

Irish Daily Mail, Saturday, February 10, 2018

comment
The lie that
We must find a way
I
t was not supposed

Gerry will
to happen like this:
Gerry shuffling off
out of Brexit impasse to a retirement cot-
tage in Donegal, his
EVER since the UK electorate voted to best buddy lying in a cold
leave the European Union, in June 2016, Derry graveyard, the
this newspaper clearly and unambiguously
has pointed out that the decision inevita- powersharing deal at
bly would warrant the return of a tangible Stormont in shambles

never be
border on this island. and the leadership of his
For Brexit to make any sense at all, our precious Sinn Féin being
neighbours would have to leave the Single handed over to an out-
Market and the Customs Union, and once sider – a ‘carpetbagger’,
that day arrived, the free flow of people as some call Mary Lou
and goods from one jurisdiction to the
other simply would have to end. McDonald – with no
This was seen as scaremongering by roots in the Provos’
some, and blithely dismissed by others. struggle or the Troubles.

able to live
Rather more crucially, given where we now It was supposed to have
find ourselves, it was ignored by the gov- ended so differently, with Gerry
ernments in Dublin and Westminster, Adams sitting at the Cabinet
whose strategy appeared to consist of the table in Government Buildings
and Martin McGuinness shar-
words: ‘It’ll be grand’. ing power with the DUP in Bel-
Yesterday, the EU chief Brexit negotiator fast, edging the hard men of
Michel Barnier finally put to bed that cav- unionism with charm and gen-
alier attitude and confirmed our predic- erosity towards a more chari-
tion when he said a hard Brexit simply table view of Irish republican-

down
had to lead to a hard border. That is a ism. It wouldn’t have been Irish
pretty dismal scenario for trade. It is a unity, for sure, but it would be
massive inconvenience for those who live a historic achievement: Sinn
on one side of the border but work on the Féin in power in both parts of
other. Potentially, it is catastrophic for the Ireland at the same time.
hard-won peace. So where did it all go wrong?
When Leo Varadkar became Taoiseach, I have to cast my mind all the
he recognised these threats and played way back to 1982 in the search
for an answer, to the eve of a
hardball with the UK. In December, his Northern Assembly election
tough stance forced extraordinary conces- called by the British in what
sions that now seem to rest on very flimsy proved to be another hopeless

The Sinn Féin leader


foundations. bid for a settlement. Fresh
For the UK to abide by them, it would from the hunger strikes and
forever more have to follow rules laid down the election to Westminster of
by Brussels, and that effectively would Bobby Sands and his com-
rades, Sinn Féin had embraced

retires today but his


mean there was no Brexit at all, while
leaving the UK with no say in the forma- electoral politics and decided
tion of regulations. to field candidates who had
If that now proves unacceptable to the pledged not to take their
British government and to the DUP, it seats.

past just won’t go away


But it was a risky move. The
leaves only one other option, a no-deal last time the IRA had embraced
Brexit. That is a scenario with grave con- parliamentary politics the
sequences for the economies on both sides result was a split which had
of the border, and across the Irish Sea. created the Provisionals and
This newspaper always said Brexit would cost the lives of more than one
be bad for Ireland, but a no-deal Brexit activist in bloody feuds. Gerry
would be significantly worse. That is why Adams had to step carefully.
it is imperative our leaders focus on find- The first, and really only,
like a spider eating its mate, no

SATURDAY
question the news media

by Ed
ing some way out of the impasse, and match for a partner with a
achieve a solution that guarantees future wanted to ask on the eve of
that 1982 poll was whether he Cheka-like intelligence wing.
prosperity for everyone on the island of Would the same happen to

ESSAY
was a member of the IRA. But

Moloney
Ireland. them? Keep a safe distance
the answer could lead into a

Keep up momentum minefield. To admit such a seemed a wiser choice, a course


thing would be the basis for a that did Micheál Martin no
criminal charge and a mini- harm at all.
MORE than 1,000 people have now backed mum jail term of a year. If Adams’ denial of IRA mem-

M
came back to torment Gerry ‘­ disappearance’ of alleged bership back in 1982 was the
the Irish Daily Mail campaign to ban the Adams. In the South he was informer Jean McConville, wellspring of his failure there is
sale of smartphones to children under 16. not dealing with an electorate dumped in a secret grave on a an irony there. While Gerry
Well over 200 have taken the time and incurably divided about the beach at Carlingford Lough, in Adams was most certainly an
trouble, and spent the money, to post the ost IRA men,
faced with that legitimacy of the State, but Co. Louth in 1972; of prison IRA member – and over some
coupon we have printed to ask the with a consensus-based soci- warder Brian Stack, fatally 40 years he has held nearly
question, chose
­Government to legislate for this. the same answer. ety, a large slice of which saw wounded by the IRA in 1983, every IRA rank, from battalion
As we have pointed out, smartphone use ‘Mind your own business’, or a Sinn Féin as an existential whose killers were supposedly commander to Chief of Staff – I
leads to all sorts of problems for the young, less polite version. It wasn’t threat: in the case of Fine Gael, known to Adams; of Garda have never, in all my research
and impacts on physical health, mental the truth, but neither was it a to the State itself; in the case Detective Jerry McCabe, killed and interaction with the IRA,
health and emotional wellbeing. It leaves lie. And it meant they wouldn’t of Fianna Fáil, to that party’s by the IRA in Co. Limerick in come across anyone who saw
them open to bullying, to pornography, to have to go to jail. It was also monopoly of the republican 1996 and whose killers’ release Adams actually fire a gun in
violent images and to the vile advances of the sort of question the media vote. was demanded by Sinn Féin; of anger, set the fuse of a bomb or
sexual predators. would soon tire of asking. Not only that, but Adams’ father-of-seven Tom Oliver, press the button that would
That so many have responded shows just Instead, Adams chose to lie, own inconstant autobiography killed as an informer by the detonate it.
how strongly they feel, and we will forward and the lie has haunted him. was reflected in Sinn Féin’s IRA in Co. Louth in 1991 after Gerry Adams was always a
He was never in the IRA, he political opportunism, one day an appeal for clemency was general, directing the battle
these petitions to the Government on appealing to the electorate allegedly turned down by from behind the lines, never a
their behalf. told the media, and he has
stuck to that answer ever since. with a radical, left-wing pro- a well-known IRA and Sinn soldier on the front line.
We must, however, keep up the momen- gramme, the next presenting Féin leader. Brendan Hughes, his former
But the answer went down well
tum. If you have signed, please also ask with most of the Provo grass- SF as the party of business, And so the breakthrough closest friend in the IRA, first
your families, friends and neighbours to roots; here was their leader that had ‘no problems with south of the border never encountered him during a riot
do so. To protect our children, we must cocking his snook at the­­ capitalism’. At other times came. The results speak for in the lower Falls at the start of
keep the pressure on. British and the unionists, Adams’ own economic illiter- themselves. One Dáil seat in the Troubles, supervising the
acy served to depict SF as a 1997; five in 2002; four in 2007; throwing of stones and petrol
Sinn Féin’s new era
refusing to give them the
slightest excuse to label him party with no fixed beliefs 14 in 2011 and 23 in 2016, the bombs by young kids.
an IRA killer. beyond the Northern conflict. centenary of the Rising. A 20- That would be his role with
In all the subsequent years And so, aided by a mostly year journey to win 14% of the the IRA as well, planning and
TODAY is the last day of Gerry Adams’ hostile media, the Southern Dáil; it was barely enough to
Adams’ denial of IRA member- directing operations from the
34-year presidency of Sinn Féin. His legacy establishment turned on make Sinn Féin a minority can- back room of a terraced house
ship has done Sinn Féin no
may well be divisive, but the time has damage at all with Northern Adams, using his lie about his didate for coalition govern- on the Springfield or Falls
come to look to the future, not the past. nationalist voters. It did not non-membership of the IRA to ment, much less the senior Road, meeting commanders
While we differ on many, many policy stop nor even cause SF to fal- brand him a liar about every- partner. and issuing orders. Surpris-
issues with the new leader, Mary Lou ter in their pursuit of the SDLP. thing, from economic policies Not only that. The Southern ingly only a few have ever ques-
McDonald, she at least has a clean pair of But when, nearly two decades to his links to the IRA and parties had watched the tioned his apparent reluctance
hands, and is not tainted by the murder later, the peace process opened especially to its atrocities. demise of the SDLP with trepi- to get his hands dirty; most
and misery of the Troubles. up the possibility of electoral It was the IRA excesses dation. John Hume’s party had recognised that in Adams they
We wish her well as she takes the reins in success south of the border, south of the border that were embraced SF in the cause of had a general with special stra-
a new era for Sinn Féin. that convenient lie from 1982 the most damaging. The peace only to be consumed, tegic gifts who was more

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