From today’s editorial in the Irish Times Adams’s claim that there was “absolutely no cover up by Sinn Féin at any level”, is worthy of the most cynical bishop. It appears to be based on the fact that the IRA came to accept that she had indeed been abused. But its response was not to assist in bringing the culprit to some external forum of justice, or to counsel and assist the victim, but to offer to shoot him. That …
There was plenty of stuff to talk about on last night’s Spotlight Special, and we will be coming back to other parts of the programme. But this piece from Naomi Long was direct and to the point when invited to talk about Gerry Adams post the Liam Adams child rape trial: I think what it does show is just how sordid things were in Northern Ireland, and not just in terms of what one community did to other community but …
With the Attorney General still to decide on a previous decision by the DPP not to prosecute Gerry Adams for withholding information in light of his testimony earlier this year, Katie Varvos asks: Does [Gerry Adams] deserve a sentence, or was he really doing his best in a dark situation? Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking …
And on the day Liam Adams was sentenced to 16 years for the child rape of his daughter, and Gerry Adams odd insouciance on the matter of what he actually did in response to finding out over 20 years ago, this from Sinn Fein… Ms McDonald is furious (apparently) with Micheal Martin for claiming that: From information we have picked up, and we have talked to other people, this may have been a broader trend in the republican movement. Just …
A roughly scrawled graffito has appeared in Beechmount Avenue in the Falls area of Belfast, which reads: ”Gerry tell the truth?” It’s a rare public challenge to the hegemony of Sinn Fein’s power base. The party hold five out of the six Assembly seats in West Belfast. It sits around the corner from one of the youth clubs Gerry Adams’ brother Liam worked in for a total of seven years from 1998, until about the time Liam’s daughter Áine restarted a …
Matt Cooper in today’s Irish Examiner puts nail firmly to head. Ignore the whinging about hostile media coverage, that’s par for the course he says. But no matter how shaming or embarrassing this story is for all of us, this surely is the reason it won’t go away: Liam Adams apparently told Gerry in 2000 that one aspect of the allegation was true. That was the time that the Sinn Féin leader, in the peace process era, should have reported …
Gerry Moriarty in the Irish Times yesterday notes the inconsistency of Gerry Adams various stories in relation to what he knew about his brothers abuse of his daughter and when. There are two versions of the truth at play. What Gerry says he knew (and when) and what Aine and her mother say he was told (and when). Here’s some highlights from Moriarty: It emerged during both the collapsed and completed trials that as far back as 1987 Adams was …
From the court records, I think this is worth a thread on its own. It’s pretty much how Gerry Adams reported the news that his brother Liam was abusing his own daughter to the Social Services in Belfast. Well, no. That’s not what Gerry did. This is what the leader (then as now) of Sinn Fein actually did the day after he heard the news: Q. Well may I suggest to you that you, as the Member of Parliament for …
At the start of the week, Danny Morrison delivers an ‘almost time to panic’ post to Eamonn’s blog… Next he’s on Nolan filling out what he means: listen to ‘Danny Morrison: “I hope I’m wrong but I suspect the Assembly could collapse”’ on Audioboo This sort of rhetoric has been streaming out of that quarter for weeks. But as Ken Reid noted last night, there is little evidence of any crisis other than a threat by Sinn Fein to send the …
The most telling part of this whole sordid affair is when the second trial jury officially queries why Gerry Adams has not been brought before them by either the prosecution or the defence. The unvarnished truth is that the testimony of the leader of one of the largest political parties in Ireland was so strewn with contradictions and lies that neither side would take the risk of having Mr Adams appear in order to put their case. Yesterday he was …
The guilty verdict in the retrial of Liam Adams on ten offences, including rape and gross indecency, against his daughter, Áine, leaves unanswered questions about the evolving narrative of his brother, Sinn Féin president and Louth TD, Gerry Adams, post the 2009 UTV Insight programme when the allegations were made public. Indeed, the absence of Gerry Adams as a witness in the retrial was questioned by the jury – as UTV reports During a first trial earlier this year, which …
Mark Simpson tweets: Adds: The defence’s case that pre trial media coverage meant Mr Adams could not expect a fair trial has been set aside. He will face 18 charges of abuse from his daughter. However the judge has given a short stay until Thursday (so he can remain on bail), when the matter will be mentioned again. He would normally be given 15 days to appeal the judge’s decision. Related reading: Liam Adams Timeline Mick FealtyMick is founding editor …
Liam Adams appeal against his extradition is continuing in Dublin. Despite a lot of feverish speculation on how the media might have damaged Mr Adams’ chance of a fair trial, it seems it is the words of his brother (which, unlike his later explanations, were almost simultaneously with the UTV Insight Special), the TD for Louth and President of Sinn Fein that forms a core of his assertion that he would not get a fair trial in Northern Ireland. Mr …
We’ll be launching the full set of categories for the Slugger Awards later this morning, but Chris Donnelly makes something of a pitch for two extraordinary come backs over the last year. Gerry Adams, who this time last year was plunged into a personal and political crisis over the allegation by his niece that he’d known of her accusations of abuse against his brother and had done nothing to help. This was followed in fairly short order by a Spotlight …
Yesterday the BBC reported that Liam Adams is seeking legal aid so that he could fund the transcription of the media coverage of his daughter’s allegations against him. In all likelihood, his own brother’s words should feature prominently. As we argued when the story broke after Chris Moore’s documentary, is that no one (ie, Adams and his daughter) would get any official justice once the story became public. But then, as Gladys argued at the time, simple ‘acknowledgement’ is more likely to …
In the Belfast Telegraph, Eilis O’Hanlon has written an impressively controlled piece on how Sinn Fein and its wider Republican movement (the organisation formerly known as the IRA) have managed to subordinate the natural bonds of human feeling to the furtherance of ‘the cause’. A dissenting scion of the Cahill family, she begins with her experience of going to her mother’s funeral last Autumn in the literal and metaphorical heart of Republican west Belfast: Most of those individuals who attended my …
Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald’s clash with the Sunday Tribune’s Suzanne Breen on RTÉ’s Today with Pat Kenny [mp3 file] yesterday is notable mostly for the numerous breaches of Slugger’s ‘play the ball’ rule. For background see the Liam Adams timeline, and some questions about Gerry Adams’ declared ignorance of his brother Liam’s involvement with Sinn Féin in west Belfast. But if, as Mary Lou McDonald claims, Sinn Féin are committed to revealing the “full facts” about this, here’s another …
Well, confession time (one of several I’ll be making in the next day or two after the last weeks of madness)… I got the day wrong. I said yesterday was day 21. In fact today is day twenty one (sorry Arthur!). Just to keep us right, we’ll be instigating a clock that keeps us straight in future. Now, today, we have nothing to report directly on Deputy Morgan’s lack of a response to his false statement that Gerry Adams’ ‘estranged’ …
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 …
For give the half baked nature of this, but it just occurs that if Robinson can stay, there would be no hiatus. No hiatus means no fly negotiation opportunity to sink the Assembly over Policing and Justice for Sinn Fein. Brave, certainly. They may get caned at Westminster, but calculate they get through this crisis they can get the win on Policing and Justice… Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the …
