And the Sinn Féin statement

We have also established that Liam Adams was Chair of the Louth Comhairle Ceantair for two and a half months in 1996. He held the position of secretary for one month before this time. He was also nominated as Education Officer but he did not take up this position.

Gerry Adams has stated he became aware in 1997 that Liam Adams was a member of Sinn Féin when he heard that his name might be going forward as a potential election candidate. The party President moved to ensure that Liam Adams did not go forward as a candidate and that he later left the party. Gerry Adams did this without involving the party locally or nationally.

Except that we have the Louth selection convention, with candidates Owen Hanratty and Liam Adams, being advertised for October 1996.

And, as well as placing his time as Chairman in Louth in June 1996, we have Liam Adams chairing the 40th anniversary commemoration at Edentubber in November 1997.

They do admit, however,

The fact is that information from this period in the 1990s is not complete.

The SF statement continues

After this time Liam Adams continued to mix in republican circles and attend some republican events. From 2000 and for a number of years he involved himself in localised party work in Belfast. Liam Adams did not re-apply to join the party as would be required by party procedures. He held a number of positions in a cumann in Lower Andersonstown, including chair for a short period before the cumann dissolved. [added emphasis]

The local organisation was unaware of the allegation against Liam Adams and the circumstances of his departure from Sinn Féin in Louth. Clearly his admission to the party in Belfast should have been avoided. Gerry Adams has informed the party that he was not aware of Liam Adams involvement in party work at this time.

Adds But if Gerry Adams had Liam “dumped out of Sinn Féin”, as he has claimed, why was Liam Adams re-involving himself in the party in his brother’s own constituency?

And if, as a Sinn Féin spokesman previously claimed - as noted here

“[Liam Adams] 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.” [added emphasis]

That would mean Liam moved seamlessly from being “expelled” by Gerry Adams from Sinn Féin in Louth, to Sinn Féin activity in west Belfast.

Update It’s worth noting that rather than having Liam “dumped out of Sinn Féin”, Gerry Adams now has a slightly different version of events

“I learned yesterday that my brother Liam Adams became a member of a cumann in Lower Andersonstown after I got him to leave Sinn Féin in County Louth.”

He’s still vague about the actual dates.

But, in 1998 Liam Adams started working in west Belfast at Clonard Youth Centre.

And Liam Adams was still working in west Belfast as a youth worker until 2006.

It would seem entirely natural that, by at least 2000, a former party chairman in Louth would have joined the local cumann.

If he had no reason to believe that would be a problem…

And, after reports that Liam Adams had been nominated for selection as a Sinn Féin candidate for Louth in the 1997 general election, the version became

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.”

The one consistent feature of Gerry Adams’ version of events is a lack of clarity on actual dates.

But we can place the Sinn Féin selection convention for Louth in October 1996 - which was advertised with Owen Hanratty and Liam Adams as the nominees.

From the Sunday Tribune, there are eye-witness accounts

We have also statements from three republicans who were present at the selection convention in the Imperial Hotel, which Sinn Féin still denies took place.  It was chaired by Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin and minutes were taken, the sources said.  Liam Adams was supported by Belfast republicans living in Dundalk who were moderates and pro-leadership.

And we have this statement from a Sinn Féin spokesman reported in the Irish News, and noted here

“Liam Adams did not put his name foward for selection in 1997. Sinn Féin are saying that this story is completely inaccurate. “His name was never involved in that.” He said that Liam Adams had been living abroad but returned to Ireland in the early 1990s when he began associating with republicans in the Dundalk area.  “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.” [added emphasis]

In the latest clarification, Gerry Adams also says

“I want to make it clear that republicans in Dundalk and senior party colleagues were not aware of the allegations against Liam Adams.”

Which avoids sharing one problem.

While Sinn Féin’s Gerry Kelly has declared, of Gerry Adams, that “Now I think he’s acted in the best interests of the party..”

And what of Arthur Morgan, TD, and his recently recovered memory?

Well, in today’s Irish News report Morgan asserted, in defence of his ‘slip of the mind’

Mr Morgan continued in his insistence that Liam Adams “wasn’t a key person” in local politics during the late 1990s, a decade after the party leader was made aware of Ms Tyrell’s claims.

However, he admitted that Liam Adams had served as chairman of the party’s district executive in Louth before quitting “for personal reasons”.

“He was, of course, a member of Sinn Féin but what I completely overlooked when I made [earlier] comments was that he had been chair of the [district executive] for two months,” Mr Morgan said.

“He chaired two meetings, after which he resigned for personal reasons.  I wasn’t at either of those meetings and that’s probably why it completely slipped my mind.

“Although he was chair for a very short time it was so unmemorable that I completely forgot about it.”

But we do have a date for Liam Adams being chairman of the “district executive”.  Because, when he was photographed with Martin McGuinness opening the new Dundalk Sinn Féin office in June 1996, Liam Adams is described in Dundalk’s The Argus at the time [7th June 1996] as “Chairman of Louth Comhairle Ceantair”. 

Five months after that photograph appeared, as reported by Suzanne Breen

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.

In June 1997, Gerry Adams is posing for photographs for the local paper along with his brother Liam canvassing in Dundalk.

Furthermore

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.

Arthur Morgan knows the significance of that last point, because it’s the role he played at the 50th anniversary commemoration at Edentubber in 2007 - when he introduced the main speaker, Gerry Adams.

Also from today’s Irish News report

Mr Morgan expressed concern that Liam Adams had worked “for a short period of time” on a community youth project in Dundalk in conjunction with the health service.

That’s probably a reference to when Liam Adams helped produce the drugs leaflet which was advertised in An Phoblacht in 1997 [scroll down].

Before he started working with youth groups in west Belfast.

The questions remain.

Getting desperate I picked up the phone again and rang a usually helpful public relations representative for one of Mr Morgan’s colleagues in the Dail. He told me he’d make a call. Shortly afterwards I received a call from a party PR man in Leinster House reassuring me he would speak to the missing TD on my behalf.  He gave me his mobile and landline numbers and told me to contact him “anytime”. 

Some hours later I did contact the spokesman, who told me he had spoken to Mr Morgan who was “quite busy” and “in a meeting” and was “quite difficult to track down” but he would keep trying. It helped to know that I was not now alone in my quest for “The Morgan”, I hoped.

However despair set in when by early evening even the Sinn Fein spokesman also became untraceable. Leaving me feel road weary but determined to finish my mission today.

Maybe tomorrow Valerie?? Now, back to the original post... In today’s Irish Times, Gerry Adams has this to say on the political usefulness of silence:

Robinson was standing down for six weeks as First Minister. Had we six weeks to reach agreement? But Gerry Adams didn’t respond because to do so would be setting deadlines, and annoying the DUP. “Least said, soonest mended,” said Adams. Very wise.

Wise indeed, not least since every time Gerry speaks on the subject of his brother’s membership of the party, he prompts more questions. And the Guardian has some interestingly divided opinions from a West Belfast, apparently finding some enjoyment in bind in which Peter Robinson now finds himself:

There are also lingering questions over Gerry Adams’s conduct once he learned that his brother, Liam, had allegedly abused his own daughter from the age of four. West Belfast might have been unified, mostly, in distaste at the conduct of the Robinsons, but on the question of Adams’s behaviour there was rather less agreement.

A number of shoppers, mostly women, reacted indignantly when asked about the Adams affair. “I think that is completely irrelevant, nobody’s interested in that any more,” said one woman called Angela, having coffee with a friend.

But outside the Spar supermarket a little further up the hill, Paul Conlon, who has known Gerry Adams since they were children, said he thought the Sinn Fein president’s position was also “a bit precarious now. He definitely has questions to answer too.” That issue might even explain Sinn Fein’s comparative reticence over the Robinson scandal, he said. “Put it this way: nobody wants to start throwing mud right now.”

What’s this all about? Check out the Arthur Morgan Watch archives…

The Irish News

has been attempting to contact Mr Morgan for comment on the reports since last week. There was no response from the TD to phone calls to his mobile phone and Leinster House yesterday.

On the blogosphere Conall McDevitt, a recently co-opted SDLP MLA and regular contributor to Slugger, has more pertinent comment on the story...

What’s this all about? See: Wrap up...