“For my part, I did not know that Liam was a member of Sinn Féin.”
Were there any journalists present when Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams made his declaration of ignorance noted by the BBC? Did they ask any questions? Were any answers offered? Here’s the Irish Times report of Gerry Adams’s declaration of ignorance
“The party in its statement on this acknowledged that Liam was a member of Sinn Féin,” Mr Adams said yesterday. However, he added: “For my part, I did not know that Liam was a member of Sinn Féin. I did know he was in republican circles.” Mr Adams admitted he had met his younger brother around this time despite the fact that they were estranged. “In the interview which I did for the Insight programme [on UTV] I did acknowledge that, although we were estranged, I actually volunteered that we met on a number of occasions.” Asked about apparent inconsistencies between what he said in the UTV interview and photographs of his brother and Sinn Féin leading figures in a Dundalk newspaper, Mr Adams said: “I don’t think there are any questions to answer. But if there are, put the questions. “The fact is that he [Liam] should not have been a member of Sinn Féin and I’m totally certain about that,” he said.
Which “party” statement was that, Gerry? The assertion by [still unavailable to answer queries?] SF TD for Louth Arthur Morgan that “Although [Liam Adams] was a party member, he was never an officer”? Despite the photographic, and archived, evidence that Liam Adams was “Chairman of Louth [Sinn Féin] Comhairle Ceantair” as far back as June 1996? When he was being photographed opening the Dundalk SF offices with Martin McGuinness? And Gerry didn’t just meet his brother during that time, he campaigned with him in Dundalk in June 1997 and smilingly posed with him for the local paper. When, exactly, did Gerry Adams know about his brother’s membership of Sinn Féin? And who in the party knew, if he didn’t?Let’s look more closely, if we can, at Gerry Adams’ story
In his declaration of ignorance he references the UTV Insight programme.
But, as I recall, no mention of Liam Adams’ membership of Sinn Féin was made in that programme. That fact emerged elsewhere.
It was during a subsequent interview with RTÉ’s Tommie Gorman that Gerry Adams stated
[Gerry Adams] “Well I moved when I heard that my brother, my brother moved out of my life and moved out of all of our lives when he went abroad for a while. And then he come back and although I saw him occasionally during that period, maybe a period of 15 years, when I learnt that he was a member of Sinn Féin it was I who moved to get him dumped out of Sinn Féin. When I heard that he was working in youth facilities again I pressed him to leave and with one of the facilities I reported it to the authorities which were responsible for that facility.”
Then, again after reports that Liam Adams had sought to become the Sinn Féin candidate for Louth in the 1997 election, Gerry Adams offered this to the Irish Times
Mr Adams denied that Liam was nominated as a potential Sinn Féin candidate in the Dundalk area after the Sinn Féin leader broke ties with his brother. He said that as soon as he heard of the possibility his brother might be nominated, he moved to ensure that such a thing could not happen. “I moved immediately both to stop that and to get him dumped out of Sinn Féin without telling people why. But I moved very, very quickly. He wasn’t a contender, there was no nomination for Liam Adams in the Dundalk area. There was no convention in which his name was put forward, there was no contest in which he was part of.”
Given that the selection convention was held in October 1996 that places Gerry Adams knowledge of his brother’s membership of Sinn Féin prior to that date – was it before Martin McGuinness was being photographed with the “Chairman of Louth [Sinn Féin] Comhairle Ceantair”?
Eight months after the selection convention Gerry Adams is photographed in June 1997 smilingly posing with his brother on the Sinn Féin canvass in Dundalk.
And, as Suzanne Breen reported in the Sunday Tribune
On 21 December, Gerry Adams had told RTE: “When I heard Liam was in Sinn Féin, and when I heard somebody was putting it about that perhaps he would be a candidate, I moved immediately both to stop that and get him dumped out of Sinn Féin… I moved very, very quickly. He wasn’t a contender. There was no nomination by Liam Adams in the Dundalk area. There was no convention in which his name was put forward.”
Yet on 5 October 1996 – eight months before the canvass – the Dundalk Democrat reported that a selection convention would be held later that month in the Imperial Hotel. It named Owenie Hanratty and Liam Adams as those seeking the nomination.
Contrary to Sinn Féin claims, the convention took place. The Sunday Tribune has statements from republicans present. But not only was Gerry Adams canvassing with Liam eight months after his brother’s name was first publicly mentioned in connection with the nomination, Liam Adams remained a prominent Sinn Féin member afterwards.
The Dundalk Democrat of 15 November 1997 – five months after the infamous canvass – states that Sinn Féin member Liam Adams played a prominent role in the Edentubber 40th anniversary commemoration, just outside Dundalk, to honour five IRA members killed in the border campaign.
“Proceedings were chaired by Liam Adams of Sinn Féin in Co Louth. The main address was given by Sinn Féin national chairman, Mitchel McLaughlin,” the Dundalk Democrat states, The commemoration had taken place six days earlier.
The proven details of Liam Adams’ Sinn Féin activity also totally contradict the party spokesman’s claim in the Irish Independent last Monday.
“Liam was expelled after the [1997] election and as soon as Gerry realised he was in the party he took measures to remove him,” the spokesman said.
Except that previously a “Sinn Féin spokesman” told the Irish News that
“Liam Adams was a member of Sinn Féin for a short time during the 1990s,” he said. “He had lived abroad and when he returned around 1993/94 he started mixing in republican circles in Dundalk. “When Gerry found out he had become a member, he expelled him and that was around 1999.”
If it’s questions Gerry wants, he could start with the ones the Sunday Tribune have been asking for the last three weeks
But those questions we mentioned haven’t gone away, you know. Our Northern Editor Suzanne Breen has posed them two weeks in a row, and I ask them again today, for the record and to highlight the fact that Adams and Sinn Féin have so far refused to answer them (and indeed have lied when they have deigned to deal with the controversy). Why did Adams attend the wedding of his brother and stand smiling for photographs when he believed him to be a paedophile? Why was Liam allowed to be in Sinn Féin for at least seven years? Why in his 1996 autobiography Before The Dawn did Adams make 11 references to “our Liam” with no negative insinuation, almost a decade after he believed he had raped his daughter Aine?
Liam Adams worked for several youth projects in Dundalk and west Belfast. Adams claims that, whenever he became aware his brother held positions, he informed those projects. Where is Adams’ written record of this? Who are the people he spoke to? When Gerry Adams saw Liam so successfully seeking and securing jobs working with young people, why didn’t he make his concerns public? Why did he stay publicly silent when children in his own west Belfast constituency were potentially at risk?
Or the points I raised here
So don’t worry your little heads about questions over his brother Liam’s time in Sinn Féin in Dundalk. Or about questions over his brother Liam’s time in west Belfast between 1998-2006. Or the question of whom, exactly, Gerry claims to have informed at Clonard about those [1987] allegations? Or why, if because of Gerry Adams’ intervention, when Clonard Youth Centre stopped employing Liam Adams in 2003 no-one passed that information any further? Or why the Clonard Youth Centre has no record of anyone raising any concerns? Or why Liam Adams’ employment as a youth worker in west Belfast apparently ended just before Aine Tyrell decided to reactivate the case against her father in 2007 – after 5 years of Gerry Adams promising, but failing, to arrange a meeting between the two? Or any other “stupid” questions. Sure, “It goes with the territory”. Doesn’t it?
Its amazing How Gerry’s very selective memory takes a Hiatus whenever it is convenient for him to do so.
Surely someone somewhere in Republican circles and within his own family informed Gerry that his Brother was a Sinn Fein member?
There is an analogy in there somewhere of how Sinn Fein is like the Roman Catholic church regarding how it denies the existence of paedophiles within its ranks. As hundreds of thousands will continue to go to mass every week, Thousands will continue to vote Sinn Fein. Don’t worry Gerry the people are just too thick not to vote for you and just keep spinning those monotonous lying sound bites and you will be fine.They worked before and will work again.
Adams has wanted to resign as leader for some time but he has been asked to stay by others.He wants to go and he will go- within the year, but only on his terms.
chewnic
Adams has wanted to resign as leader for some time but he has been asked to stay by others.He wants to go and he will go- within the year, but only on his terms.
Nonsense. Adams has to go now so people like you are spinning that he was going to go anyway.
Adams is in a lot of trouble. Much more than Robinson. He faces further allegations in the weeks ahead and he will go. And he won’t go on his terms if the rest of the Sinn Fein leadership has anything to do with it.
Adams believes he is on a mission from God so he thinks he can stay until the mission is over. But the reality is that he will go soon because he is an embarrassment to Sinn Fein.
It makes no difference if or when he goes the same questions must be answered. As for “on his terms”, well if he is found to be involved in aiding and abetting child abusers, that “term” may not be quite what he had in mind.
This must not be allowed to fade out of sight and mind, there are people today who were horribly abused, they need their day in court.
As always Sinn Fein/IRA put children on the front line. While they hide and skulk in the background manipulating the media. Sinn Fein/IRA are claiming they are real victims, nothing has changed in Sinn Fein/IRA in over 40 years. They should change their motto to, More Republican Children Paedophile Fodder.
Ranger1640
This is exactly what S/F has to be afraid of. If anyone in the IRA abused children or protected child abusers, their crime must be declared and dealt with openly by the courts and repented by S/F leadership. If the likes of Martin McGuinness continue their support for Gerry Adams once the full truth is known Gerry wont be the only one walking the political and public plank.
Unless the media pursue Gerry Adams regarding the gross inconsistencies in his story he will survive this scandal. There is no political appetite to hold Adams to account.
The people in West Belfast will vote him back in. West Belfast is a microcism of the Ireland exposed by the Murphy and Ryan reports. Two authoritarian organisations, the Church and the Provos, dictating the lives of the people who follow and continue to do sheepishly.
By allowing Adams to pass the buck onto the party, Killian Forde’s assertion that it is a sycophantic party sounds accurate.
How Adams has been able to evade accountability is a disgrace. The message to the children of West Belfast and Ireland is that you don’t really matter.
The question now that needs to be asked, what justice can an ordinary nationalist/republican get if the victim in this case is being obstructed by Sinn Fein/IRA? Remember the recent incidents involving Sinn Fein/IRA,and the Robert McCartney and Paul Quinn cover ups and denials, the slow release of information to the families of the disappeared and the character assassination of the disappeared, Robert McCartney’s sisters and the family of Paul Quinn!!!
Gerry Adams the man who all through his life has denied being in the IRA, and has denied his full roll in several infamous incidents during the so called troubles.
So Adams, form in this issues is hardly unfamiliar to him.
Here I believe is the issue that goes to the heart of the matter an issue that nationalists/republicans are in complete denial about.
This issue of the blatant lies that Adams is coming out with are of concern for the Unionist side of the fence, but the nationalist/republican side need to re-examine what type of people and party they want to represent them.
As a Unionist we have seen Adams blatantly tell lies and half truths over many years. He is a master in the tactics of deflection, spin and victim-hood, all the tactics he has used in this case.
The ordinary nationalist/republican needs to get the see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil, collective monkey off their backs, and see Adams and Sinn Fein/IRA for what they really are.
Until ordinary nationalists/republicans, realize that Adams and Sinn Fein/IRA have a vested interest in keeping their communities and electorate subjugated then the cycle of some old, same old in nationalist/republican areas will continue forever.
I’m sure there are more of these cases, and at some stage they will be forced out, to affect the nationalist/republican communities. Remember Robert McCartney and Paul Quinn if Sinn Fein/IRA can clean up and cover up murders, there is nothing they won’t stoop too, to cover up for the party’s apparatchiks or other IRA players in a sexual abuse allegation against ordinary people!!!
To quote Thomas Jefferson: “When the people fear the government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.” Change the government, to Sinn Fein and this seems to sum up everything in nationalist/republican communities!!!
The big difference here is that it involves children. If Gerry Adams covered up for his brother to save other members of his family from further trauma, that is one thing.
If he covered up the abuse because that was the W Belfast way of dealing with child abusers who were also members of S/F or IRA that is another matter entirely and must be investigated and exposed.
The people of W Belfast had at least two groups to be afraid of. On the one hand there was the despised RUC and on the other the IRA punishment squads.
I was watching an old ITV documentary, Provos. In it Sean MacStiofain is asked whether Gerry was in the IRA. He said he was. The speaker also asserts that Adams was head of PIRA. All the evidence backs that up. A senior British Intelligence Officer says they, the Brits, were waitng till they could get a charismatic PIRA leader they could turn. He said that man was Gerry Adams.
Why does Gerry always get an easy ride? Whether it is the demise of Denis D, Scap, Bloody Friday, bonking kids, etc, nothing sticks to the Telfon Don.
Is Gerry Senior buried in a Republican plot? What kind of write up did he get at the time?
I have no idea if Gerry Adams was ‘turned’ by the Brits, and in the long scheme of things it makes no difference. Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness have bought their party to the point of leadership in NI and that is some achievement. Indeed Martin McGuinness has won grudging respect from the unionists, he is at the moment the most popular politician in the north. His achievement can be used to take his party forward to greater deeds and closer ties with the south.
Gerry Adams is a different matter. He is fast approaching his ‘sell by’ date, indeed some would say, in light of recent claims and revelations, that he is long past it. The questions are could he have prevented a child abuser gaining employment with children. Did he have more than occasional contact with his brother and did he try to further his brothers political career in Dundalk. Last did he or others assist other child abusers to escape the law and justice.
To further delay answering these questions risks the popularity of his party. In every election, for every party, it is the ‘independents’ they woo not the paid up party members. If Martin McGuinness is mired in this ‘shite’ the whole party will pay the price.
Sinn Fein is not a normal political party. It is an outcrop of the Republican Movement, which engaged itself in shooting political opponents (Roy Bradford, Senator Fox), beating them up (Gerry Fitt), conspiring to assassinate them (Brighton, the SDLP) and so on. It was run, according to captured documents by PIRA. If the head goes, the rest will wither or find new homes in the likes of the Labour Party.
Martin McGuinness cannot string a few words together coherently. Like Gerry, he is a fossil. They went for women they could control, the likes of Marty Lou attracted, perhaps to the rough by the smell of cordite.
There is no platform for a younger SF generation to build on. Northenr nationalists vote for them as they stand up tp the DUP and the SDLP have been beaten away. They have nothing to offer the South that is not already covered by other minnow, partitionist parties.
Boy buggering may not affect them too much electorally. After all, the Irish have always voted for the flawed pedigree brigade.
In time, the blight of Sinn Fein’s form of democratic centralism will pass.
“For my part, I did not know that Liam was a member of Sinn Féin.”
What kind of defence is that anyway?
The same kind of defence as this:
“The fact is that he should not have been a member of Sinn Féin and I’m totally certain about that.”
Pathetic.
Whatever journalist got that quote and left it as it stood should hang their head in utter shame, and go home. Give it up. That is just embarrassing. Adams is openly contemptuous of the local media and making a complete mockery of them, and nary a one of them has the stones or self dignity to do a thing about it except take it, cap in hand.
“I don’t think there are any questions to answer. But if there are, put the questions.”
And none did!
Shameful!
Of course Gerry Adams is certain Liam Adams shouldn’t have been a member of Sinn Fein. Everyone at this point is certain of that! The fact is, he WAS a member of Sinn Fein, and a senior ranking member at that! Unless Adams is implying his brother’s role was an Army one, which given that Adams doesn’t even admit his own Army role is highly unlikely.
However as we have piss-poor journalists who seem to be afraid of their own shadows and unable to open their mouths, we’ll never know what Adams actually meant bar his usual bamboozlement of nonsense statements devoid of meaning. Let’s be very very clear about that.
“In it Sean MacStiofain is asked whether Gerry was in the IRA. He said he was.”
Yes but I imagine that as soon as he found out he took steps to expel himself.
“Of course Gerry Adams is certain Liam Adams shouldn’t have been a member of Sinn Fein. Everyone at this point is certain of that!”
Why shouldn’t he have been?
You are right about some sections of the media, perhaps though, others are beavering away and will spring up with irrefutable evidence.
In the meantime this is not about unionist or republican, it is about children and their protection. We must be able to protect them and that is from all known dangers, republicans, loyalist, whatever.
No one should be advised not to report a child abuser to the police. No one accused of such a crime should be ‘spirited’ away from the law.
“Of course Gerry Adams is certain Liam Adams shouldn’t have been a member of Sinn Fein. Everyone at this point is certain of that!”
Why shouldn’t he have been?
_____________________________________
Slightly facetious suggestion that “everyone” was
its interesting that members of sf work in the 2 mentioned youth clubs, yet nobody ever mentioned to gerry that liam was there for 5 or 6 years between both clubs
Furthermore Liam was pictured in BMG publications with children and fellow shinners and it wasn’t even in a sunday paper, which Gerry doesn’t read…although he recently bought the Sunday Tribune but may have had somebody read it to him.
Actually I was tired yesterday so I temporarily forgot the main question and, lest anyone else does, that is: where is Mr Morgan??
This silence is most unlike any member of Sinn Fein on any other matter.