Gerry Adams – Page 3 – Slugger O'Toole

“is Gerry the Genius sure he has thought all this through?”

Pete Baker on February 18, 2017, 4:22 pm

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In today’s Irish News, Newton Emerson asks the impertinent question… Remarks by Mike Nesbitt about cross-community voting distracted from what should have been the major story of the week. Northern Sinn Féin leader Michelle O’Neill has said her party will not return to the executive with Arlene Foster as first or deputy first minister until the DUP leader has been cleared by the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) inquiry. O’Neill added this was a red line issue – something Sinn Féin …

Fine Gael on Sinn Féin: “We couldn’t work with them”

Pete Baker on January 29, 2017, 5:13 pm

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Something to keep in mind when criticising others… There was a bit of a kerfuffle following Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s mid-term non-answer to a question on the potential for any future coalition involving Sinn Féin. The Irish Examiner records Enda Kenny saying While strongly ruling out doing any deal with Fianna Fáil, Enda Kenny said “depending on the result you gave as a member of the electorate, politicians have to work with the result, so, Sinn Féin seem to be converted …

Good news, Gerry! The Human Rights Act is here to stay

Brian Walker on January 28, 2017, 10:38 am

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Another of Gerry Adams’ sticking points for returning to the Assembly seems about to disappear. The on- off on sequence of the May government’s commitment to a new British Bill of Rights to replace the Human Right Act now looks permanently off the agenda and not just delayed until after 2020, according to Daily Telegraph sources. Despite her frustrations with enforcing exclusion orders against militant Islamists, Theresa May has at last bowed to pressure from many sides not to pick …

The road to influencing the Brexit future isn’t closed. But is Adams now detaching Brexit from the future of the Assembly?

Brian Walker on January 27, 2017, 12:35 pm

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Why are staunch defenders of the GFA not rejoicing since the UK Supreme Court found that nothing about Northern Ireland’s removal from Europe breaches any law, treaty or part of the constitution and there will now be a UK parliament vote on article 50? Newton Emerson puts the question in the Irish Times with his tongue firmly in his cheek. Any failure to accept the finality of the judgements against them not only perpetuates a false impression of damage to the peace …

“if Sinn Fein fails to increase its vote and share of Assembly seats under Michelle O’Neill’s leadership…”

Pete Baker on January 24, 2017, 3:30 pm

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With a stagnating vote evident in the last NI Assembly election – just 8 months ago – and a reduced number of seats available this time out, in the Belfast Telegraph Anthony McIntyre highlights a potential problem for Sinn Féin in their election gamble. There is nothing complicated about the DUP pitch: despite the democratic veneer, the appointment of a non-martial politician to lead Sinn Fein in the north, the caudillo and his camarilla are still pulling the strings. A clear declaration …

In a slow and secret transition within Sinn Fein, Gerry Adams, still in charge, appears to be setting high targets for negotiations on the Assembly

Brian Walker on January 21, 2017, 8:28 pm

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At a Sinn Fein conference on a united Ireland in Dublin, Gerry Adams has claimed Brexit is a “ hostile action” that will “destroy the Good Friday Agreement”, although adding that “special status” would not take Northern Ireland out of the UK. Is this to be a sticking point in any talks to restore the Assembly? If so he’d be setting the bar very high and over quite a long timescale for resolution. Although it has been taken to mean …

Solutions are negotiable, if there’s the political will

Brian Walker on January 17, 2017, 10:21 am

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There’s something stereotypically Irish about a battle between two parties who are not competing for the same votes, were in one sense on the same side – i.e. the same government – and will end up more or less where we are after the Assembly election. Incisive though it is, Mick’s analysis defers the subject of finding a way through the standoff for another time. In my own pitch to CNN, I noted the switch in morale between the DUP …

“What was done jointly by the first and deputy first minister cannot be undone unilaterally”

Pete Baker on January 13, 2017, 11:04 pm

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The BBC has a report on the “detailed letter” the Northern Ireland Assembly Speaker, the DUP’s Robin Newton, has sent to all MLAs ahead of a no confidence motion on Monday. It had been reported in December that he intended to send the letter to opposition MLAs. From the BBC report He wrote that, five days before Mrs Foster’s statement, the Speaker’s office received a “valid notice seeking the recall of the assembly” which bore the signatures of both the …

Irish State Papers: The Anglo-Irish Agreement, Sinn Féin and the Provisional IRA

Pete Baker on December 30, 2016, 4:57 pm

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In part 1 of 2 reports RTÉ’s round-up of the newly released confidential Irish State papers from 1986 includes a couple of items worth highlighting in relation to the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement. First up is an account of a meeting in Belfast in April 1986 between David Barry, of the Department of Foreign Affairs’ Anglo-Irish division, and solicitor PJ McGrory – whose son Barra McGrory, also a solicitor, has previously represented Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams, and in 2011 was appointed Northern Ireland Director of …

“Adams’s dud email list of possible suspects make his honeyed words seem very hollow…”

Mick Fealty on December 12, 2016, 6:50 am

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Two good pieces well worth noting over the weekend on the big southern story of last week, Gerry Adams and that list he sent to the Guards. Both put their finger on something important. First Miriam Lord in the Irish Times: Perish the thought that this inconsequential email was sent with the express intention of further burnishing Gerry’s halo. Withhold information? Sure didn’t he contact the commissioner herself, with names and all? The reimagining of Adams continues. It is infinitely …

Adams’ tactical management of his secret past keeps coming back to bite…

Mick Fealty on December 8, 2016, 3:39 pm

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Interesting development at a press conference in Dublin this morning, when Austin Stack accused Gerry Adams of lying to Dail Eireann when he made his statement. That’s a serious accusation since Parliament operates on the basis that all elected members are acting in good faith. Nor is it surprising, since the clear and direct implication of Adams’ rather strident account in the Dail yesterday is that Stack is lying. For party loyalists (who have been through a deal worse at the hands …

“…but I withheld the names. Adams said ‘that’s not the way we operate.’”

Mick Fealty on November 30, 2016, 5:42 pm

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I’m in complete admiration for the way Sinn Fein continues to believe in their leader, no matter how implausible the scenario. This week’s implausible scenario features an email Mr A sent to An Garda Siochana just days before February’s general election. Gareth McKeown in the Irish News explains: Mr Adams named a number of senior Sinn Féin figures suspected of the 1983 murder of Brian Stack in an email sent to Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan back in February. Three of …

Taoiseach Enda Kenny: “I need to know what it is that the Executive in Northern Ireland is actually seeking”

Pete Baker on October 19, 2016, 4:26 pm

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With the Northern Ireland First Minister over-praising a letter of acknowledgement from the UK Prime Minister, and the deputy First Minister sounding off [again? – Ed] about his lack of trust in “this British government”, it’s worth noting this exchange between Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams in the Dáil yesterday high-lighting the dysfunctional approach of the NI Executive to the UK’s withdrawal from the EU. From the Dáil record 18 Oct. [The Taoiseach:] I want Deputy Adams to …

Spotlight on Donaldson shows much of the public narrative around dealing with the past is utterly fake

Mick Fealty on September 21, 2016, 9:59 am

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https://youtu.be/apBLMtOtI9Q Every time a new story comes out of the spy woodwork it is like a walk 0n the weird side. What was interesting about last night’s Spotlight was how calmly it was received on social media. You quickly get to understand why everyone chooses to believe the version they want to hear. I still struggle to believe that Alan McQuillan didn’t know his cops would turn up in force that day, or that Hugh Orde (a politicians cop if ever …

So Adams becomes a ‘founding member’ of a Civil Rights movement the IRA tried hard to circumvent?

Mick Fealty on May 3, 2016, 5:53 pm

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I recommend watching Django (‘the D is silent’) just to try and get some kind of a fix on what sort of context Gerry thought he was coming from. The film is full of crude violence, retribution, and of course that fatal taboo word, “Nigger”. Since the word recurs right through the Tarantino film, it’s perhaps not surprising the impulsive Mr Adams thought he was safe to publicly denote the singular parallels he felt existed between his own biography and that …

David Beresford hunger strike journalist and historian, RIP

Brian Walker on April 23, 2016, 10:31 am

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The best journalists are often oddballs. They can win close access to power, regardless of whether power is of the state or anti -state variety. They lack – and often spurn – status. They tend to walk alone and barely recognise dress codes. Perhaps their greatest quality is persistence against the odds, in which courage and ego play equal parts. If they have to, they skirt round or quietly ignore the rules of the institutions they work for and …

Gerry Adams at Easter. In full

Brian Walker on April 3, 2016, 10:42 am

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I though it worthwhile to put on the record Gerry Adams’ Easter Centenary address, part unreconstructed old republicanism, part election address, a classic of its kind in style and content, without further comment. On Sunday 27th March, Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams TD addressed the Easter Rising commemoration in Belfast’s Milltown Cemetery. Mr Adams stated that hurts and divisions must be healed if we are to realise the vision of the 1916 Proclamation. HIs speech in full: Address by …

Gerry Adams’ White House ‘controversy’: “Quite apart from being bumptious, paranoid and absurdly self-pitying…”

Pete Baker on March 19, 2016, 7:51 pm

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In the Irish News Newton Emerson highlights the unintended consequences of Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams’ intemperate outburst following his recent misunderstanding with security at the White House. From the Irish News GERRY Adams could have been pragmatic and diplomatic about being locked out of President Obama’s St Patrick’s Day reception and simply laughed it off. It is all too believable that the White House has the same hapless jobsworths in its security hut as everywhere else – and that has …

First Leaders’ Debate – Where to now?

Johnny Fallon on February 12, 2016, 11:39 am

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Politics is a fast moving game. What’s done is done and you have to get on with things. After the first Leaders Debate last night on TV3/Newstalk all the Leaders will be pondering what they have to do for the next time. Here at Slugger O’Toole we are all heart. So Johnny Fallon has some free and open advice for each of the participants.

Schrödinger’s Ireland – The current state of Unity, is it alive or dead?

Kris Nixon (Belfast Barman) on February 2, 2016, 8:46 pm

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“A United Ireland is Inevitable: Discuss” I went to a debate in Omagh on this topic, hosted by Sinn Féin’s Barry McElduff, with an open mind, willing to be challenged and frankly, looking for a way to understand the rationale behind the United Ireland cause. Most of what I know about partition, the Easter Rising and that era came from a trip to Kilmainham Jail a couple of years ago. What I do know though is that this happened a long …