“campaign against me is not really about me at all…”

What’s evident from Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams’ speech at the weekend – along with his attempt to equate criticism of his personal toxic denials of involvement in the Provisional IRA with a campaign of “black propaganda, the lies and smears and disinformation and the efforts to criminalise our struggle” – is his effort to assuage self-declared members of the Provisional IRA. From Adams’ speech

This is bigger than me. This is about us as a republican community, especially in this city of Belfast. This is about our integrity and the just nature of our cause. That is why the Irish Republican Army – Oglaigh na hEireann – was known as the peoples army.

I am proud of that Army and my association with it. I am not a militarist and I never have been but without the IRA the nationalist people of this state would still be on our knees. We would still be second class citizens. So bear in mind that this relentless campaign against me is not really about me at all. It’s about trying to defeat the struggle.

Proud of the human rights violations? When he was “of the view that no military solution was possible…” Adds Not to mention “[keeping] faith with the republican past…”As I said in the linked post

The quote from the letter dated in the 1980s, however, would not seem to be as conclusive as Adams would appear to believe.

And it ignores other elements of the struggle which were deployed – in a “campaign which drew its lessons from previous such periods in Irish history, as well as from contemporary experience around the world.”

And for an alternative analysis of the outworking of that Process™ see this previous post. Or this one.

After all, it might already be too late..

Then, as noted here, there is Gerry Adams’ less than transparent accounting of his brother Liam’s movements.

By way of comparison, as RTÉ reports

Cardinal Seán Brady has indicated that he intends staying on for a considerable time as Archbishop of Armagh.