Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams has chosen solidarity with his northern counterpart, the out-going SDLP leader Mark Durkan, over party loyalty in the “partitionist nonsense” row – when a southern SF councillor-led group disrupted a joint-press conference with the Irish Labour Party. From today’s Irish News [subs req]
The West Belfast MP was openly critical of councillor Tomas Sharkey and other party members who have been accused of disrupting a pro-Lisbon Treaty press conference hosted by the SDLP and the Irish Labour Party in Dundalk on Tuesday. Mr Adams, whose party is leading the no campaign, yesterday compared the Sinn Féin group’s actions to those of rowdy teenagers. “If you’re 16 or 17 you may do these things but if I had been asked I would have said let them [SDLP/Labour] be. You’re just causing a distraction,” he said. Mr Adams, who is in Dublin this week ahead of tomorrow’s referendum said he could not condone the actions of the Sinn Féin members who taunted Labour leader Eamon Gilmore and SDLP leader Mark Durkan during the Dundalk event. “When people are excited they get over the top. There is a lot of anger out there but certainly it isn’t something I would have done,” he said.