Not too long ago anyone who publicly doubted the honesty and integrity of Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams was, in some quarters south of the Irish border, risking the sort of response usually reserved for child molesters and war criminals. Few could be more withering and condemnatory, especially behind one’s back, than Fianna Fail, although to be fair the Department of Foreign Affairs always gave them a run for their money.
I am of course speaking of the days of the peace process, especially pre-Northern Bank robbery, when to suggest that Gerry Adams was anything less than a fountainhead of truth and candour was on a par with concocting a breakfast recipe that featured fattened Protestant babies in the main course.
Now it may have been the case that people like the then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and his Northern point man Martin Mansergh truly believed that Adams was being sincere and straight in his peace process dealings but I seriously, seriously doubt it. Something as difficult as getting the IRA to end its war on the terms that were finally accepted was not the sort of project that could be steered to success without a considerable amount of falsification and dissembling. And Bertie and Martin would have known that very well.
So when Gerry Adams or his nom de guerre, P O’Neill, would routinely assure the troops that IRA decommissioning was just not on the cards, my hunch is that Bertie and Martin would look at each other and wink. They would, or should have known via Garda Special Branch that this was nonsense and that plans to do just this were already being laid just as they knew that Adams was aware that decommissioning was the price he’d have to pay to get Unionists to share power with him.
But they would also have been acutely conscious of another peace process reality: lying to and deceiving the Provo grassroots in this way was the only assured route to eventual success. It kept the IRA rank and file content and quiet, lulled into a false sense of security until it was too late for them to do anything about it. In the same way, Bertie and Martin would, I suspect, have grinned and borne it whenever Adams or P O’Neill denied that the IRA robbed this or that bank, knowing this would also keep the grassroots bamboozled, convinced that their leaders were trustworthy, had once again successfully hoodwinked the Irish government and that the IRA would never go away.
Bernadette McAliskey once compared the peace process to pushing a fly down the neck of a wine bottle. Eventually a point would be reached when there was no traction left and the fly would fall, helpless, to the bottom of the bottle where it would drown in the dregs. Mendacity was the stick that pushed the fly down the neck of the bottle.
In fact it would be no exaggeration to say that the ability of Gerry Adams to lie and fool so expertly was the peace process’ most valuable asset. Had Adams been straight and honest with his people about where the IRA was going to end up, he would have been found long before 2005 in a ditch somewhere in South Armagh, trussed up like a Christmas turkey with several bullet-shaped holes in his skull. Without his talent for dissimulation we would never have got to 2005 when the IRA, finally divested of its Semtex and AK-47’s, declared its war against Britain to be over.
The corollary of all this was that a special venom was reserved by the Irish state for anyone in the media who dared suggest that the Sinn Fein leadership had less than a monopoly on the truth. Everyone knows the fable of the Emperor’s new clothes, how a child shames the crowd into admitting the truth, that the Emperor parading in front of them supposedly clothed in finery is actually stark naked. There is a special Irish version of the story with a very different ending. When the child cries out ‘the Emperor is naked’, the crowd reacts by turning on the child and beating it to death.
It is, of course, the job of government to lie and deceive or to connive at others’ lies in the pursuit of implementing policy. And many will say that telling lies in the quest for peace in Northern Ireland was not only excusable but laudable. But journalists are not politicians, or at least they shouldn’t be. They – we – have a special duty to the truth, even if that causes discomfort or difficulty. Whenever I was assailed by government officials, or more often by fellow hacks, for writing stories deemed ‘unhelpful’ to the peace process my response was simple: if this process cannot survive one of my stories then it’s doomed no matter what I write or do not write. Joining in the deception, either by commission or omission, wouldn’t make a jot of difference except to devalue the trade of journalism, to render it a useless and unconvincing charade.
So, I have to say that when I heard that the new Fianna Fail leader Micheál Martin had challenged Gerry Adams to tell the truth about his past membership of the IRA, to “come clean” about his “baggage from the past” as he put it, I have to confess that I laughed out loud and long. “There is a fundamental problem for Gerry when he continues to deny his membership of the IRA”, said the bold Micheál, “because every time he talks in this debate during the election about honesty . . . it jars very much with his own position about the past.” Indeed it does Micheál but you didn’t have that problem back in 1998, did you?
Micheál Martin was not only a minister in the Fianna Fail cabinet from 1997 onwards, during the key years of the peace process when there a special premium on Adams not telling the truth, but he is a former Minister of Foreign Affairs whose civil servants not only helped Adams hone to perfection his dissembling skills but often led the charge, employing a special sense of viciousness, against anyone who questioned the Sinn Fein leader’s honesty.
Micheál Martin, more than most people, has known for a very long time that, in relation to Northern matters, Adams and the truth have often been strangers and the fact that he chose this time to let us all in on the secret is a sure indication that in the forthcoming election the Fianna Fail party is headed down the toilet. Truth suddenly acquires virtue, one could say, when political destruction stares you in the face. There was a sense of desperation about what he said, as well as artifice, and I suspect the Irish voter picked up on it.
There was however one line in Micheál Martin’s statement that especially drew my attention and it was this: “Martin McGuinness doesn’t have a problem admitting his membership in the past but I think there is a huge problem for Gerry Adams in a credibility sense.”
Actually not entirely true, Mr Martin. Not only not the full truth but also unfair to Mr Adams. It’s unfair to Gerry Adams because in the narrative of Provo dishonesty peddled by the likes of Micheál Martin, the Sinn Fein leader is depicted as the singular voice of skullduggery in Sinn Fein whereas in fact Martin McGuinness has lied ever bit as flagrantly about his IRA history as Gerry Adams and, I strongly suspect, would have lied as comprehensively but for a few inconvenient pieces of newspaper and television archive.
The Martin McGuinness that I came to know as a journalist covering the Northern Ireland beat was rarely far from the very top of the IRA pyramid. In the mid to late 1970’s he was the IRA’s first Northern Commander, appointed to the job when on Adams’ advice a separate Northern Command was created whose effect, if not purpose, was to take power away from Southern IRA leaders. He then became Chief of Staff and held that post until 1982 when others on the Army Council insisted that he had to give it up if he wanted to run as a Sinn Fein candidate in the elections to Jim Prior’s Assembly.
He always hankered to get the job back and for years afterwards a vicious feud simmered beneath the surface between him and Kevin McKenna who took over the post and held it until he was succeeded by ‘Slab’ Murphy. McGuinness re-entered the military picture in a serious way in the mid-1980’s when, in preparation for the arrival of Libyan weaponry and the launching of the IRA’s version of the ‘Tet offensive’, he was again made Northern Commander with the special job of distributing Col. Gaddafi’s guns to the units on the ground. The task that he performed was done in such a way that it brought him into conflict with Michael McKeviit, then the QMG. McKevitt came to suspect that for whatever reason, McGuinness gave more weapons to units that were most likely to lose them, usually through the efforts of informers.
When the peace process got under way he played two key roles. One as the IRA’s (or at least Gerry Adams’) secret contact man via people like Derry businessman Brendan Duddy with British intelligence and the Northern Ireland Office; the other as Chairman of the Army Council, traditionally the IRA’s chief diplomat and representative in discussions with outside individuals and bodies. When the media would describe McGuinness as the ‘Sinn Fein negotiator’ during peace process talks they got it wrong. He was actually there representing the Army Council, as their official ambassador.
So in all the years between the mid-1970’s and 2005, Martin McGuinness was there at the very top of the IRA or thereabouts, playing a crucial role in both its military and political side.
But what does Martin McGuinness himself say about what he was doing during this period?
Well the answer to this question can be found in the report of the Saville Tribunal into Bloody Sunday, to be specific in the transcript of witness cross-examinations, pages 140-141 of day 391’s business. McGuinness was being questioned by Christopher Clarke QC, counsel for the Tribunal about the “Green Book’, which contains the IRA’s manual, statement of aims and constitution and this is how it reads:
Q. It may well be, sir, you had already left the IRA by the time this document in the form that we have it, came into existence. When did you leave the IRA?
A. Here we go again, on another trawl through the Martin McGuinness fixation.
Q. No, it is not at all, sir, not at all. May I just explain to you, because you have been very concerned, understandably, to be treated in the same way as the soldiers, and it is precisely the same question, word for word, as was asked, I think, of some seven or eight soldiers.
A. Were they asked when they left the British Army?
Q. Yes, simply because it was thought to be relevant to the way in which other people had reacted to what had happened on Bloody Sunday. You do not have to answer my question or any of them, I ask them, and I will not ask them twice, it is for the Tribunal to say whether you should answer them or not: I ask again, when did you leave the IRA, if you did?
A. I left the IRA in the early part of the 1970s.
So during all those years when we thought that Martin McGuinness was Northern Commander (twice), Chief of Staff and then Chairman of the Army Council, he was really a civilian with no connection at all to the IRA. How could he be anything else since he told the Saville Tribunal under oath that he had left the organisation in the ‘early’ 1970’s?
I can almost hear the readers’ response: “Sure, that’s bullshit but at least he admits he was in the IRA, if only for a bit!” And that’s true and it’s more than Gerry Adams has ever acknowledged. But why lie about the three decades or so after the ‘early’ 1970’s and not about the two or three years before it? Is it because there’s more to hide in the later years or because he screwed up in those early years, admitting things about his association with the IRA that he regretted later and which the wilier Adams would never have? And if he had not said or done those things would he too, like Adams, now be swearing to the world that he had never, ever been in the IRA?
Martin McGuinness at an early IRA funeral in Derry
There’s this for instance, something that falls into the rush of blood to the head category, a statement he made from the dock in Green Street courthouse, Dublin in 1973 when he was convicted of IRA membership:
“We have fought against the killing of our people. I am a member of Oglaigh na Eireann (IRA) and very, very proud of it.”
That’s something Mr Adams would never have said.
Then there’s this video of an appearance at an IRA press conference in Derry in June 1972, perhaps an example of McGuinness succumbing to the lure of the klieg lights. He is flanked by IRA Chief of Staff, Sean Macstiofain, Belfast Commander Seamus Twomey and Army Council member Daithi O Connail, and the purpose of press conference was to put forward an IRA ceasefire proposal to the new NI Secretary, Willie Whitelaw. There’s an even more famous television interview, broadcast on ITV but sadly not available on YouTube, in which a youthful McGuinness admits being the Derry Commander of the IRA. Again the shrewder Gerry Adams would have steered well clear of such exposure.
After blatant admissions like these it would be impossible for Martin McGuinness to deny he had been in the IRA in the ‘early’ 1970’s. But after that, in the subsequent three decades, he never made a similar mistake or engaged in such embarrassing frankness ever again and, thankfully from his viewpoint, it was so much easier therefore to resort to the lie.
There’s another part of the story of Adams, McGuinness and the peace process that is vital to an understanding of this period. For sure, Gerry Adams dissembled the IRA into decommissioning its weapons and ending its war with the British but he didn’t do this alone. He couldn’t have achieved it without McGuinness’ help for while Gerry was the Provos’ political leader, he never had the trust of the IRA rank and file that Martin had. The reason was simple: Martin had a military track record and Gerry didn’t. Martin had done the business and Gerry hadn’t. So when Martin would give substance to Gerry’s assurances that all was well, as in this video, it gave the whole project a crucial credibility.
In the days before my book ‘A Secret History of the IRA’ was published in the autumn of 2001, Martin McGuinness toured newspaper and television offices in Dublin and London to talk about it to editors and senior journalists. His purpose was simple, to blacken my name and label me a dissident fellow-traveller. It was partly an effort to do the book down and partly an exercise in intimidation, carrying with it the implied threat that any journalist treating my book sympathetically or seriously risked the same treatment. He even went to see my editor in the Sunday Tribune, Matt Cooper. Matt asked him did he believe Gerry Adams when he denied ever being in the IRA? “Yes” replied McGuinness, not missing a beat. “He looked me straight in the eye when he said it”, recalled Cooper.
Martin and Gerry
The Broken Elbow 
Another excellent piece, Ed. One thing that has always puzzled me is why Adams [and, in the manner you describe, McGuinness) should wish to deny his IRA membership. I appreciate that the doesn’t wish to be associated with some of the more grotesque killings that punctuated the Long War. But how likely was that? He could easily have admitted to the “bold” decisions he took as Belfast commander – defending the people against the Brits and the Loyalist hordes – while simultaneously denying knowing anything about the rest. He could even, quite plausibly, have argued that he was always a man of peace, forced against his better nature to act as a man of war.
Surely it should be a point of pride to him that he more than did his bit for the Cause. If we are to believe his assurance that he has no entitlement to a beret and leather gloves on his coffin when he turns up his toes, then we are surely entitled to ask why scores of those who did serve regarded him as their leader and how it was that so many volunteers – like Brendan Hughes – had tales to tell of his ruthlessness and derring-do.
I am willing to bet (though I may not be around to collect) that when he dies, Gerry’s beret and gloves will mysteriously appear, as will the “hidden” version of his memoirs, with proceeds donated to his children. The alternative – that he truly did not volunteer – would mean either that he didn’t have the stomach for the fight, or else that he was never more than an up-market carpetbagger, building his career on the sacrifices of others. The SDLP with attitude, nothing more. Which is it? I wonder.
By the way, I watched him on RTE today. He obviously knows fuck-all about economics and even mixed up pounds and euros. It would be a laugh, would it not, if the people of Louth told him where to go after all these years – i.e. back to Belfast?
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Have either ever confirmed the dates on which they formally joined SF ?
gerry adams joined the fianna, the pre-split republican movement’s male youth wing, in the wake of the divis street riots in 1964. martin mcguinness was first a member of the officials but in 1971, exasperated at the lack of activity by that group, he switched over to the provos. re ‘Sinn Fein’, the basis of your query, you must remember that in those days, SF was more a convenient legal front for the IRA than a proper political party, which it is nowadays. neither man would have set out to join SF but rather the republican movement, i.e. with the IRA as the parent body.
‘When the child cries out ‘the Emperor is naked’, the crowd reacts by turning on the child and beating it to death.’
Gets it in one
Gerry has lost all credibilty with his lis lies and denials. The run for Dáil Eireann is surely his last throw of the dice. This is purely a Gerry taking care of Gerry excercise, he doesn’t want to go down in history as finishing his political career as an ordinary member of the British regional parliament, Stormont.
It will be interesting to see how he performs in the Dáil, a few wrong moves, like his gaffs on economics and Gerry goes into the history books as a liar and a one trick pony.
We’ll see. I have a feeling this ‘screw the bankers line’ peddled by adams might be quite popular and chimes with the popular mood. as for the dail, that’s hardly a place renowned for its oratory and debating skills so he may do reasonably well in comparison. we’ll know soon enough.
Cheers Ed, just wondering if they had pre-rehearsed their answers on that one or whether they were content to be as ambiguous as possible also.
Fair point on SF being more of a cheerleading group at the time and looking after graves, welfare and prisoners families etc.
Whilst it is entirely a technicality, I have heard the theory that GA can argue that he wasn’t ever ‘in’ the IRA to the extent that he wasn’t formally sworn in in the full, so to say, ceremonial sense – whilst at best this could be viewed as a white lie, is there anything in that ? Also, have people like Billy McKee never affirmed that he was formally sworn in or would it have been a breach of the green book to do so (to say nothing of a prosecutable incrimination, to be fair) ? McKee in latter years became no friend of Adams as you know and company in latter years but at the time when it’s likely Adams did join, there cannot have been too many people around who would have approved his membership or inducted him, I’d have thought, and McKee mjust have knowledge of that.
Lastly, has Ivor Bell ever spoken in recent years about his former relationship with Adams or is he very firmly sworn to silence ‘unto the grave’ on his former comradeship ? (Mackers did you ever have much of a relationship with Bell during or subsequent to his and your involvement ?).
I’d love to know the answer to that question as well but they are unlikely ever to tell us. i’d be surprised if they hadn’t co-ordinated as they always do on important matters like this. the provo leadership, especially those two gentlemen, are nothing if not control freaks; they’d never leave stuff like this hanging.
on the issue of adams membership of the IRA, i am still surprised that anyone can seriously doubt it and as for that theory about his incomplete swearing-in i have never, ever heard anything like that and if it had happened i expect it would have surfaced by now. i suspect your theory is bedded in the idea that unless there was some technicality like this the IRA leadership wouldn’t allow him to lie so blatantly. well the reason he is allowed to lie in this way is the same reason he’s allowed to keep the royalties from his autobiographies rather than handing them over to the movement and it’s because he has basically been running the show for a long time now, he’s the boss and the decider. in fact i’d go far as to say that for many of the IRA’s last years, he was the IRA in the sense that nothing happened without his knowledge and/or say-so. the more intriguing question is why he decided to deny membership. traditionally, IRA members would seek refuge in the equivalent of a ‘no comment’. they could never admit membership because it could lead to criminal charges and would be a breach of internal disciple, but they always made sure they’d never lie by denying it. adams, and mcguinness in his way, broke with that tradition and all the grief visited on adams, from the jean mcconville case to his present problem, arise from the fact that by denying membership he angered former comrades who then said ‘well if he’s allowed to break the rules and deny what he did and ordered others to do, then fuck him, i’ll break the rules as well’ and their tongues were loosened. i have no doubt that had adams not lied about this matter, brendan hughes would never have given his interviews. equally, i don’t believe we would have heard even a fraction of the story of jean mcconville’s killing had he adopted the traditional IRA practice but he didn’t and her death will haunt him for ever. also, i suspect that a lot of the stuff about what really happened during the 1981 hunger strikes wouldn’t have seen the light of day otherwise. it has been a huge own goal by adams but the questions remains: why did he do it? did he think he’d really get away with it?
“Dual Membership” was the much used terminology, this facilitated an ever ready pool to undertake paper selling, collections and of course public protests etc. I remember sharing a corner of Queen Street selling the “United Irishman” along side Jim Sullivan and Joe McCann.
yes, sinn fein or the republican clubs back in the early days was a convenient legal front for people who were really IRA
Do you ever stop to think that the obsession with Adams of Henry McDonald, Liam Clarke and yourself is self-defeating? There are a lot of republicans who are angered by Adams on occasion, especially after the revelations concerning his brother, but your commentary has no credibility whatsoever with them. Just because your heart was broken by the beard, doesn’t mean we have to share the pain.
actually harry, i am not writing for republicans or any specific group but doing what i have always tried to do throughout my journalistic career – not always successfully – which is to highlight hypocrisy wherever it may exist. i happen to be one of those people that gets terribly angered by liars, especially those who prosper by their lies at the expense of others or dupe people into doing things they otherwise would never have done.
i have always believed that it is journalism’s singular function to expose lies and hypocrisy wherever they exist, even if in practice it doesn’t always deliver the goods. i, however, have always tried to my best in that regard and my ‘targets’ over the years have been many and varied. if you doubt that i suggest you have a look back at my career as a reporter in ireland, read my clippings and the various books i have written or contributed to or go ask the paisley family, the ruc, the sdlp, the uda, the workers party, the british army, mrs thatcher, some of media colleagues and numerous other actors in the northern troubles.
there was a time when people like you used to express admiration for the sort of work i did until, that is, your own party and leader came in for some deserved and long oversdue examination. then it all changed. good journalist became bad journalist, almost overnight.
if you deem me an ‘obsessive’ for that then i am proud to be an obsessive.
in relation to gerry adams, let me say this. he is a national political leader and his party is vying for a place in government at a time when the irish economy is in tatters thanks to the dishonesty of its political leaders yet you have a problem with journalists who press mr adams about his failure to be honest about the basic, defining facts of his own life history, you characterise them as obsessive, as if they are suffering from some psychological defect! how dare you?
if the media let brian cowen off the hook, or failed to interrogate enda kenny in the way you would have us treat gerry adams, you would be the first to howl in outrage – and you know what, i’d be howling along with you. that’s the difference between you and me.
Harry, you write : “There are a lot of republicans who are angered by Adams on occasion, especially after the revelations concerning his brother”.
Many people see the dispute about Gerry Adams’ leadership role in the republican movement as history, something we should move on from. That is fair enough.
But history should be based on respect for the real world, and not become a license for myth-making. It would be better for everyone concerned if supporters of Sinn Féin could stop defending obvious lies – such as the ridiculous claim that Gerry Adams was never an IRA member – and stop attacking messengers delivering the truth ( for example Ed Moloney).
People are entitled to criticise and commend the actions of Gerry Adams during the troubles, and many individuals did worse things – ministers in the Fine Gael-Labour “Heavy Gang” government of 1973-77 come to mind.
The row about the alleged child-abuser Liam Adams is different. That is a current issue – because we know that child-abusers are often repeat-offenders.
Many Catholic Bishops are guilty of “vicarious liability” – that is they knew about allegations of child abuse but failed to take action against offenders, or covered up for them. They should leave office immediately.
Exactly the same standard should apply to Gerry Adams, and it would be best for everyone if he left public life.
I do not doubt your sincerity. But the evident glee with which you write about Sinn Fein setbacks means your work is not taken seriously by many republicans, ie. they do not read it and see it as from the same stable as McDonald, the Sunday Independent et al.
two responses:
examples?
and: like i care.
On child abuse there is due process and wait for a verdict please.
On bishops and child abuse the same applies.
Unfortunately and like many “pillars” of the establishment, no prosecutions( for covering up criminal activity) has been initiated over the decades.
Calling for resignations is naive and shows a lack of recognition of the crimes committed.
Very mature responses. How about one of your op-ed peices for the Irish Times where you predict the end of the Sinn Fein project now that Gerry Adams has topped the poll and will lead the main opposition in Leinster House?
err….wasn’t the strategy about getting into government, rather than becoming the opposition? bums on seats around cabinet tables on both sides of the border and all that. unless you’re saying that was then and this is now….?
I’m saying it’s magic to see the Sunday Indo, Irish Times, Belfast Telegraph and assorted ‘experts’ squirm!
i suggest you wait till you hear the fat lady start her song first. i know i will.
PUPPETS ON A STRING
On stage of our own making, jerking
Around 71% of the public:- voted for me- before I
Drifted off down south leaving you our voters
To believe in fairy tales, storybook lies
On a string of hope I watched you dance
Then when the time was right I waltzed off
South of the border, down Fianna fail
Way become one with their establishment.
After all when on stage, and the backdrop burns
Its all part of the act as we jerk you lot around
Knowing you are gullible, puppets on a string
Left in despair all you can do is watch as I take flight.
Winging my way south to Louth, you can watch charades
From afar as I gleefully strike body blows on all fronts
And enter into the gubernatorial championship ring
United in pockets, over flowing with forty piece of euros.
my egoistical instincts;-and my sleight of hand
Making it appear that I looked after my adoring public:-all puppets
Whilst here I, sit laughing in my chair in their stater
Parliament, conscience eased, after all I didn’t take my seat
Under British rule, only their money, and does that count?
Don’t think so, you can all dance to the D.U.P rule I’m
Your leader of Sinn Fein do as I like 71% of rejects
Left behind to fare for themselves in the land of John Bull
No more shall I care, though, never did, simply played
The game of jerking the reins to watch you dance like
Puppets on a string, only I win, as I fold up my tent, and run
Off down south, and there share my perfidy with others of my ilk
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Tactics, rhetoric and policy are all written about here.
The alternative reality of politics defines standards and rules which only apply to politicians.
update on this theme to Fine Gael/ Labour 2011.
Take a simple comparison… Any Irish citizen who achieves wealth and the trust of a nation by fraud ( written and spoken contracts of undertaking) and deception by breaking the pledges to a Nation, would be subject to charges of fraud and deception in the Irish courts.
This coalition government of 2011 has achieved wealth and the trust of the irish nation by fraud and deception?
An alternative reality as defined by politicians, media and the legal establishment avoid the application of legal interpretation to this corruption.
if there are criminal definitions for activities of individual citizens ( with penalties) then politicians are subject to the same irish laws.
I have read all of the communication that was passed between McGuinness and Oakley, I have sat down and spoken with Sean O’Callaghan, I am satisfied that McGuinness was recruited by M16 in 1985 and he used his ‘sanctioned’ meetings with Oakley as cover for his unsanctioned meetings, each of which were recorded and make interesting listening…….I am not the only one to see the communications between Oakley and McGuinness and I wonder why nobody has ever asked McGuinness (in a quiet dark room or an open forum) what Oakley meant when he signed off on one communication with “Martin I hope you dont mind if I give a new meaning to Tiochaigh Ar La”…..why has this question not been asked…….perhaps British agents are as plentiful as mushrooms
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Hello Mr Moloney,
actually the “famous television interview, broadcast on ITV…in which a youthful McGuinness admits being the Derry Commander of the IRA” is available on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZG6cNaM1a5U&feature=autoplay&list=PLD867F2%20C26AA1E33F&playnext=3 (starts at 4:30 min.).