This weekend, Gerry Adams will annoy a lot of people by being re-elected President of Sinn Féin for the 33rd successive time. Some of these will be Sinn Féin members who think it’s time Gerry stood aside and allowed Mary Lou McDonald or Pearse Doherty a go at leading the party. The overwhelming majority of annoyed critics will, however, be outside and probably hostile to Sinn Féin.
What are the arguments for Adams retiring gracefully? Well, there’s his age – he’s sixty-seven. We all slow down. Get more interested in smelling the roses than setting out on the rocky political road. Most ordinary people retire around sixty-five. Gerry Adams, though, isn’t ordinary. Neither is Raul Castro, who is eighty-four and President of Cuba. Or Hillary Clinton, who is sixty-eight and running for US President. Her main Democratic rival, Bernie Sanders, is seventy-four and her likely Republican opponent will be Donald Trump, who is sixty-nine. And let’s not forget Pope Francis, who is seventy-nine. So clearly Gerry’s age in itself is no impediment to his continued role as party leader.
Are there other arguments against his continuation in his present post? Well, he was seen as having had a mixed general election a couple of months ago. He was the one politician that members of the public flocked to so they could have a selfie taken with him, but he was seen as having stumbled when confronted with economic questions on radio or TV interviews. He’s clearly a shrewd tactician, having led his party from four seats in the Dail in 2007 to twenty-three Dail seats in 2016. On the other hand, he tweets about have a bath with his rubber ducky and trampolining naked with his dog. Oh, and he says he wasn’t in the IRA but everybody thinks he was.
We’ll have a chance to add to our assessment of him after his televised leader’s speech tonight from the Sinn Féin Ardh-Fheis ( at 8.30pm since you ask, Virginia). Meanwhile, it’s worth stressing again that most of his critics come from outside the party and are hostile to Sinn Féin generally; so it might be smart to think a bit before following their somewhat-loaded advice. Secondly, the two TDs usually referenced as possible successors, Mary Lou McDonald and Pearse Doherty, fall a long way behind Adams in terms of calm authority and personal charisma.
Some are left with no other choice, it is time to go.
As the horse trading continues over mercs and perks, some citizens have to boil water while others suffer in silence on waiting lists. Recent statistics confirm that there were 459 suicides in the 26 counties in 2014, a reduction on the figure of 554 in 2011.
Prior to the election, Mr Kenny rounded on “whingers” and tried to fool the electorate with his views on an economic recovery as homes were destroyed in floods. It is ironic that the provision of a safe water supply continues to present challenges in the constitution of the next Dáil. For others political careers are now the flotsam and jetsam in the tide of affairs surging through Teach Laighean.
In the midst of political intrigue, life goes on. A Health Sector Jobs Fair will be held in Dublin today. Posts are available in London, Australia, Canada and America. There is a growing demand for Irish health care professionals throughout the world.
Inadequate funding has created a crisis in the Irish health service and in a range of other public services. It would appear that some TDs remain content to stand idly by as human resources flow out of the country.
Recovery? What recovery?
Kenny,Martin,Burton,Eastwood and the rest are political pygmies compared to Adams.He is feted worldwide by anti imperialists and liberation movements.Always remember that he was the only political leader from the continent of Europe asked to take part in Mandela’s honour guard.Hopefully he is going nowhere anytime soon and will continue to lead for decades.
I think he should stay until the next election in the south. It would be a very bad thing if he did a Paisley & remained leader into his 80’s.
It is a difficult one Jude I have mixed feelings about it myself. I know that Gerry Adams is a gargantuan politician whose influence across the world would make any other politician on this island green with envy. I also know that he has made great personal sacrifices for justice and peace on this island and further afield.
If I were in his shoes I would probably be defiant with the principle that people outside of Sinn Fein should not be able to dictate the internal structures inside the party and I have no doubt he will continue to have the support of the vast majority of members and supporters of the party no matter what decision he makes.
It all boils down to intolerance and we see it every day but most of us have become desensitised to it and are now indifferent to it. If I have the wrong window sticker in my car window and park in the wrong area I am probably going to get my tyres let down/ slashed, windows broken or my car keyed or scratched. What to do? Do I continue to park there in principle knowing the damage will continue? Do I wait and catch a perpetrator and watch as he is replaced by an endless line of volunteers buoyed by the same intolerance as the original transgressor, before I eventually realise the intolerance is endemic?
And so it is for Gerry Adams, a man who is not allowed to represent his constituents in the Dail because every time he speaks he is hectored to a standstill by establishment politicians all under the stewardship of a chairman who was appointed by those hectoring the loudest!
They hate him and there is nothing much anyone can do about it because the mainstream media despise him as well!
It is impossible to get the message out in such circumstances. It is grossly unfair but they make the rules! With no alternative mechanism in place there is little choice but to beat them at their own game and then change the rules to make them faired to all!
I think a smart man like Gerry will know when its time for him to go him self .
It’s always important to question the motives of people, in this case the motives of those that are hostile to Sinn Fein and want Gerry Adams to go. Why? They claim Gerry Adams is holding Sinn Fein back. If that’s true then obviously these people hostile to Sinn Fein would want Gerry Adams to stay in order to keep a stone in Sinn Fein’s shoe. Or maybe the truth is Gerry Adams is far more of an asset than a liability to Sinn Fein, the vast majority of Sinn Fein members would agree he is.
I would rather Gerry Adams stayed Sinn Fein leader for the foreseeable future and I think he will do. He may not be as quick and as sharp as he was but he’s still the most popular and well known of all the Irish political leaders. Whereas Enda Kenny and Micheal Martin will be forgotten within a week of their retirement, Gerry Adams is maybe the most well known and successful Irish politician over the past century, whose personality and beard will be remembered long after hes dead and buried.
Ryan
Has it ocured to you there may be people out there who are not hostile to Sinn Fein, but maybe a bit hostile to Gerry.
There may be voters who would consider voting SF as a left of centre party with some decent policies, but who cannot get past the memory of what Gerry’s mates (though not Gerry of course) did, and are waiting for a new generation of Shinners to move the party on.
But then its not as if they need any more votes so not to worry.
I find your constant concern for the welfare of SF somewhere on the line between touching and hilarious, gio…
Jude
Manplaying?
Any thoughts on the idea that some people might consider voting SF once they have replaced the generation involved in our conflict?
Not ‘manplaying’, gio – just a bit like James Joyce – obsessed with the God he professed not to believe in, you appear deeply interested in the political party you dismiss…As I’m not ageist, I don’t object to Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Raul Castro, Pope Francis on grounds of age. Odd the way people (harrumph) keep going on about GA’s age. RTÉ were it this very afternoon.
It’s not his Gerry’s age that people comment on though Jude. It’s his tenure. 46 years is a long time to lead a democratic party or any institution. Hilary’s never led her party and Francis is a new boy. Some of the comments here which compare Gerry only with people outside Sinn Fein seem to imply that without Gerry there is no Sinn Fein.
Gio’s saying that it’s hard to advance reconciliation and stop recrimination (which Sinn Fein opened their conference telling us was top of the agenda) when the people who conducted one side of the conflict refuse to leave the stage. Thatcher’s gone, Paisley’s gone, all the old conservative UUP ministers have been replaced with a smiley TV anchorman.
Even after WW2 Britian knew it took a different person to build a welfare state than to conduct total war.
It’s as if Sinn Fein supporters are so in awe of militarism they can’t bring themselves to move past their wartime leaders despite all the lectures to the rest of us about fresh starts.
Jude
His age may be an issue for some, but surely you would accept that some people have an issue with him because of his connection to the PIRA.
A new Sinn Fein without the old soldiers would be more appealing to some.
Possibly young voters who have no interest in the exploits of Brownie, or older ones like me who remember and find it hard to give him a vote.
Also as I have said before Sinn Fein are part of my government and their principles and policies have a direct bearing on my life,so I do take an interest, if that is ok with you.
Sorry – Just 33 years as president. 44 years since Gerry was negotiating truces.
Pigmy-minded critics may bray what they like about The Unionist Times, Esteemed Blogmeister, but there is one mighty redeeming feature about that august organ of record. One that those intellectual ne’er do wells can never dispel: its sheer ee i ee i biodiversity of opinions.
Take two issues at random – say, yesterday’s and today’s – where the focus was on the Twin Towers of two neighbouring islands on the north west coast of Europe. Twin Towers, but neither of the monozyotic or dizygotic types – otherwise known as identical or fraternal.
This is what TUT had to pussyfoot about Elizardbeth 2 (90) :
-Her relationship with Ireland is longstanding and committed. She knows Northern Ireland well but was not able to visit the Republic until the Belfast Agreement was well bedded down and relations with the UK had become normal and neighbourly. The indelible impression from her visit to this State in 2011 was one of warmth and dignity embodied in her eloquent phrase about ‘being able to bow to the past, but not be bound by it’.
Perhaps the crucial word in that paragraph is the short b-word: bow. It rhymes with Wow! And also the sound characteristically associated with an orgy of corgis: bow wow ! The push-button gush prose just stops short of wishing Her Madge the old Leprechaun blessing:
-Go maire tu an cead / May the sun rise upon you and you to be a ton, hon i.e., till your gorgeous grandson and not your lunky son can fit his botty into the throne.
(Succinct tongue, the Leprechaun).
This is what TUT had to tut-tut about Gerry A 1 (67):
-Adams is 67 years old and his time as President of Sinn Fein must be coming to an end. Then there is the problem of the past for Sinn Fein. The party’s links with the IRA continue to haunt it.
Now, just as ‘bow’ was the pivotal word in the Elizardbethan Serenade a tiny three-letter word is the killer in the not so merry Gerrymiad : ‘end’.
Indeed, if Gentleman Jim could but put his sweet lips a little closer to the phoneys he could well have crooned:
-He’ll have to go.
And guess what? Forsooth and by jiminy, but isn’t Gentleman Jim himself all over the same two editions, though not where he might like to be: the obituary columns.
Gentleman Jim Downey (for, sadly it is he ) late of both The Unionist Times and later, its Ugly Sister Paper, The Irish Dependent, passed over earlier this week and this Doyen of Dull Prose and Ditch Water Views is quite rightly eulogized.
Remarkably, one of the pieces especially picked to highlight the soaring intellectual style of ‘the Conscience of the Irish Independent (sic)’ dates from 1999 but could have been substituted for the Elizardbethan Serenade in The Unionist Times as quoted above.
Spot, if possible, the similarity:
‘Ever since outbreak of the Northern Troubles 30 years a prime objective of all Irish governments has been to prevent the violence spilling over the border.
With some exceptions they have succeeded. There is nothing on this side of the border comparable to the lawlessness which has prevailed on the other side and still prevails. But the exceptions have been spectacular.
They have included, among many other sensational events, the murder of Earl Mountbatten and a British Ambassador, Christopher Ewart-Biggs and the abduction of Tiede Herema and Don Tidey. During the operation to release Mr. Tidey a Garda recruit and a soldier were killed’.
Correct, the similarity has indeed been spotted. Not a dicky b. about the proxy visits of The Commander in Chief of HM Forces to the markets of downtown Dublin in 1972, 1973 and 1974 in the shape of the Fruit and Vegetable Division of the Glennane Health Farm. And codenamed, respectively:
– Operations Wheelbarrow, Cockles, Mussels.
Divil a focal.
Gerry is as solid as they come. As was discussed on this site before, SF , under his stewardship, presents the only realistic way forward. It’s been 800 years and it will take a long time to ultimately reunite Ireland . He has the long view and the patience needed.
Look at the alternatives. On the political side we have less than ordinary leaders of FF and FG fighting for their measly jobs and water rates. Unable to put a government together. The health service is in a shambles.
Up north you have the stubborn , intransigent unionists who will not “give an inch” and the insufferable SDLP people. The whole bunch is satisfied with the status quo .
Physical force is not an option although the attitude of those who think it is can be understood . But it’s not going to work boys and girls.
Gerry, however is not getting any younger and it is essential that the next generation be identified and groomed for taking over at some point.
Oh and let’s not forget the smug, supercilious media types who should all move over to Finchley where they would be much more at home.
With his terror baggage, his less than honest approach to his brothers pedophilia, how he handled the rape’s within Sinn Fein/IRA, and to his touchy media performances and his lack of economics he is sure to stay for a long time within the cult.
He and McGuinness are the two men to ensure a Unionist turnout at voting time.
Here was his epitaph from west Belfast, however it being west Belfast were criticism of Sinn Fein/IRA is forbidden. The article had to be removed post haste, and by demand of Gerry and the rest of the shinner/provo cabal in west Belfast a full and grovelling apology was demanded. Pitty they didn’t remove the article before it was pick up by others, “bastards”.
http://sluggerotoole.com/2008/03/20/gerry-must-go/
Glenn, I welcome your point of view but maybe a little less of the bastards-talk. It diminishes your argument, I think. The same of course goes for all of us.
That “bastards” term was using the same term that Adams used to describe all of Unionism. It was used ironically this time for those on his own team who don’t think he did such a sterling job in his heart land of west Belfast. I take on board your point and I can assure you I don’t normally use that type of language.
Fair enough, Glenn. Point taken.
“20 years. Two decades. Four parliamentary terms. Four US Presidents. Two Popes. 11 Secretaries of State. Five UN Secretary-Generals. Five Taoisigh. Five Prime Ministers. In Ross Street the wind of change blows in empty Budweiser boxes and despair; it blows out good people and hope.”
To be fair Gerry did go Glenn. He went to Louth.
To be honest they are welcome to him. Lets hope he retires to Louth.