The hypocrisy is breathtaking when you consider that he let six of his “brothers” in the struggle starve themselves to death just for his political career.

You know, like the abuse scandals affecting all clergy, this hunger-strike scandal blights all republicans. None are completely untarnished. There is in my opinion something deeply flawed about republicanism that it produces people like Gerry Adams. And Gerry Adams is in my opinion just very good at being a republican. It is the philosophy that is flawed in the first place.

I agree. But he won’t step down without a fight and the resultant humiliation when he is seen for whast he is.

In his ‘Secret History of the IRA’ book, Ed Maloney makes it very clear that Adams lied quite cynically and purposefully to him in relation to details around the IRA’s ‘disappearing’ of Jean McConville.

Its therefore a bit of a no-brainer for Adams to tell porkys about the possible resolution of the hungerstrikes. The alternative to lying is admitting responsibility for the unnecessary, harrowing deaths of some of his most devoted followers.

Hunger-strikes aside, how many comrades has Adams jettisoned to some terrible fate in pursuit of his own glorification?

The world would be a better place if he were to step down off the stage.

The only outstanding matter is finding who is responsible. To me it is Gerry Adams primarily and Danny Morrison on the H-Blocks committee that scuppered the deal.

But others may find that the reqired level of coldness to let young workingclass men die come from advice taken from Churchmen or businessmen who knew that the deaths were damaging the image of Britain abroad. This hungerstrike didn’t happen overnight. It happened in slow motion largely and every decision was calculated and thought through in relation to its effects.

How could anyone be so cynical as to let young men die? Ultimately the decision rested with Adams and the voices he listened to. His craven desire not simply to be the next John Hume but the next Jesus Christ is in my opinion at the root of his decision making. And subsequently Gerry Adams tried to turn the clock back on 2,000 years of Christianity. He would have succeeded if it were not for John Hume and Richard O’Rawe.

With the kind of devestating lack of objectivity embraced by this seethingly resentful little group who, like our thread-master, Rusty Nail, had already decided the conclusion of their “inquiry” well in advance we can only wait with keen anticipation their next attempt at historical revision, working title: “Did 6 Million really die?”.

The motivation of those involved seems so much inspired by unresolved infantile behaviour (the “Look at me, mommy! Look at me!” syndrome) that it is difficult not to look for answers for their conceit in the realm of the psychological rather than the poltical.

I also saw Brian Rowan in the audience. Can’t see the problem with journalists speaking, unless you can point out any of them shouldn’t.

How are they meant to feel given all this controversary?

Its high time all documentation was released to the public before more hurt and grief is caused!

If you can’t access videos (strange) then you’ll have to wait on the papers to be published, but they exsist, Liam Clarke had the papers with him, and read them out and said he’d publish them on a website…..

Patience..;-)

Should read, DM admits there was an OFFER….

That is not the way of it. These documents are contemperanous with the events, but there is also evidence sourced from various written material, such as books like ten men dead etc that indeed a deal was on offer. Danny Morrison admits there was a deal, O’Rawe and Clarke have come forward to the exsistence of the conversation that took place etc etc etc…

Anyone who now says there was no offer is up the left, its exsistence has been proven by Morisson himself, so has he an axe to grind too..???

The position has moved on. There is no question now about the exsistence of the offer…..

Years of being pilloried by the SDLP and others for not having a mandate made Gerry Adams particularly very determined to use the hunger strikers to launch a political campaign. Politics was where it was at in 1981 as always as that is where power lay.

So we shouldn’t really be that surprised if a young and inexperienced Adams decided to use his comrades for the cause. They had after all volunteered and could have died before then in operations.

But when life is cheap and elections have a powerful attraction, you’re going to get decisions like the ones made by Adams, a man who believes himself to have a destiny. His destiny is to be great like John Hume, his comrades’ destinies were to die for his political ambitions.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out what happened.

No, From what I can gather Bobby Sands was an unstoppable force,
in all probability the leadership recognized that fact and acquiesced, taking into account his determination and realizing if they did not they would lose control over their volunteers. This is only a guess though. Although it would explain the system that was set up to oversee the HS.

“All those weeks before [his death], there was an offer which I could have said to Mickey Devine, ‘Here’s an offer Mickey. This could save your life.’”

that was after the speeches in the hall on Saturday night.

Not everything is out yet… By the end of the day, or when the papers are published and the remainder of the vodeos come out everything will be much clearer.

But we do know now, Liam Clarke read out the offer from the British from papers released under the freedom of information act…..

But if as you say command of the hunger strike lay outside are you also suggesting that the outside leadership ordered the hunger strike?