Under Fire: Gerry Adams Interview

In the gutted streets of West Belfast, the Republican Press Centre is distinguished from the neighbouring houses only by its even more all-encompassing protective barriers. Vetted first via the intercom system, the visitor is led into a small waiting-room, dominated by the television monitor relaying pictures of activity in the street below.

The first wave of joint RUC-Garda arms searches has just begun and five Sinn Féin councillors have already been arrested, "Mitchell McLoughlin’s been badly beaten up," one helper recounts, as he rushes past, telephone message in hand. Around the walls, numerous posters document the political skirmishes of the past ten years. Stop the Strip-Searches, Plastic Bullets, the Anglo-Irish Agreement – they’re all here. Among them is the now famous faded photograph of a long-haired Bobby Sands over which a poem has been superimposed.

"It lights the dark of this prison world," the final verse reads, "It thunders forth its might, It is the unbeatable thought my friend. The thought that says I’m right."

In the tiny office which has been assigned for the interview, Gerry Adams has just begun to eat a take-away burger "D’ya mind," he enquires. "Fire ahead," I quip good-naturedly, "I may be a vegetarian but I’m not doctrinaire."

Adams is obviously interested. "I’m thinking of going that way myself," he responds. "I’m startin’ to eat a lot of fruit at any rate."

One can just imagine the tabloids going to work on that one: "No Beef for Barmy Bomber – ‘I wouldn’t hurt an innocent animal’ says Republican Fruitcake!"

However the tabloids here an in Britain might paint him, nonetheless, in the flesh, Gerry Adams is soft-spoken and reflective. And in the aftermath of Enniskillen, he is also the first Republican leader to so quickly distance himself from an IRA bomb which led to civilian casualties…

Kate Shanahan: What’s your earliest memory?

Gerry Adams: My earliest memory… I remember on my first day at school being slapped by a Christian Brother, I can’t really remember anything before that.

KS: What did he hit you for?

GA: I think he was in the wrong! Some other wee lad took my pencil-case, and the brother came in just as I was taking it back.

KS: Your family was relatively poor, wasn’t it?

GA: Aye, and still is, thanks be to God. We were a large family, then children – in fact there were thirteen originally, but a set of twins and another baby died shortly after birth. But, to be quite honest, I think that the poverty was borne more by the parents than by the children. In comparison to the situation today, which is much more materialistic, we probably seem very poor but we were just the same as everyone else on the street.

KS: What would you say gave birth to your political awareness?

GA: I suppose I was very politically ignorant until at least Grammar School. I remember Primary School, myself and another fellow called Murphy, whose father had been interned in the 1950s, we were debating what the initials IRA stood for, and we decided that it was Irish Rebel Army. Our ambition at that time was to play football for County Antrim, and to win the All-Ireland final. I think that there was an awareness of Protestant and Catholic, not in a sectarian way. Our Gran y’see used to keep house for a Protestant woman whom she’d become friends with and we used to go every Saturday down the Falls Road and up the back streets that separate the Falls from the Shankhill, places you wouldn’t walk now, and we’d have tea and stuff with this woman, and Gran would shop on the Shankhill because they had better choice of shops with cheaper prices.

KS: Is there any event that stands out from those days?

GA: Well the event that I mark down as developing my political consciousness was the Divis St riots in 1964. I had left St Finian’s and was in St David’s Grammar school. One day I came down Divis St and there was a tricolour in a shop-window. And Paisley called for the flag to be removed. I then learnt that it was a Sinn Féin office and there were elections on at the time. So Paisley threatened to remove it and the RUC burst in and removed the flag, so the people in the office put it back up again, and it went on back and forth. I was passing by this everyday at the time on my way to school – so I think that that’s what whetted my political appetite.

KS: Most fellas of that age would have been starting to drink and maybe think about chasing women?

GA: Actually there’s been so much that’s happened, I was sayin’ this to Morrison recently – he for example has a very clear recollection, he can probably tell you everything that happened and since the day he was born – but so much has happened that I really can’t remember. I know that about 1967, ’68, I was working as a barman. The wages were reasonably good by the standard of those days. And, though I wouldn’t be drinkin’ regularly. I was havin’ an occasional drink. I was very much part of the whole scene that developed around the resurgence of folk and traditional music. Bob Dylan, the Beatles and all of those things associated with the 1960s were going on as much in Belfast as it was anywhere else. It was a very enjoyable time. Belfast had a fair amount of entertainment spots then. Terry’s Bar was one. Or you could have heard Them, or Van Morrison in a place called the Marquee. There was Romano’s and the Plaza, where you’d see Joe Dolan and The Drifters, Dickie Rock or whoever else happened to be at the tail-end of the showband scene.

KS: Can you remember your first date?

GA: My first date? God I don’t know

KS: There’s going to be some woman feeling either very insulted or very happy about that.

GA: (smiles) I remember. I think she was my first date, a girl called Theresa – she was a very nice girl but I haven’t seen her in years.

KS: Were you a much shyer person then?

GA: I still am shy. It takes me a week to hype myself up for these interviews.

KS: If it weren’t for the specific political situation in the North, would you have still become involved in politics?

GA: I put it down to circumstances, myself. Sometimes when you’re undergoin’ a very aggressive interview with a British journalist, I have to remind myself that if it weren’t me, it would be somebody else. I just happen to be the person who, at this moment in time, happens to be in this position. It’s har d to know if my life would have been any different – there are a lot of ‘ifs’ involved. If you hadn’t done this or that, if you hadn’t witnessed something else, you wouldn’t have become politically involved. But in the abnormal that existed in the North back in the 60s, I was just – and I like to think that I still am – somebody who happened to be born in West Belfast. I think I’m as representative now of the people in this area of a Northern working-class background, as I was in the Sixties. I was as influenced by everything that happened back then and did everything that people my age did and now in the 80’s I’ve been influenced by conditions now, and a majority of the people in West Belfast feel as I do.

KS: Is there any other career that you could see yourself in?

GA: I have this unfulfilled desire – as opposed to ambition – to write. When I think about it seriously, I don’t think that anything I write would be good enough but nonetheless I enjoy writing. I like being able to create some sort of tendency. The small pieces that I have written are of a life that would otherwise go unrecorded – of a type of society that I come from, where there are some great characters, where the people don’t really do any harm. I mean yer average working class man or woman doesn’t do anybody any harm in terms of the harm that’s done by the big powerful people, and I would love to have the ability to record all that for posterity. I’d like to write. Whether I will or not, remains to be seen. A lot of people will say ‘it’s a pity he didn’t’

KS: How does that affect you, the fact that you’re a figure of hatred for so many people?

GA: It’s hard to be insensitive to that – but it isn’t one which has any dramatic effect on me. That’s probably because I don’t feel isolated – enough people in this constituency, against all the odds, agree sufficiently with what I stand for, to vote for someone like me. Besides, you have to be a wee bit mature – I don’t mean that in the glib ‘if you’re in politics you have to have a thick skin sort of way’, but a wee bit mature in that, since people are being fed a diet of personalised politics, someone has to be the scapegoat, so you’re bound to have people centring their hatred on one person. I still deal with complaints from a small but significant number of Protestants – people from the Shankhill will still contact me for constituency service.

KS: Have you ever had anyone trying to throw a dig at you in the street?

GA: I’ve been to all parts of Ireland and I’ve never had any problems. There’s been about three occasions when people would have shown opposition, maybe in a pub. Most of the time people are very curious about what's happening. That sometimes becomes a bit of a nuisance because you can’t have a pint in peace. For instance, I climbed Errigal this year with three youngsters and two dogs and a couple of cans of lager. It’s something I’d been talking about and planning for nine or ten year. Anyway, the three wee lads went off and I was left sitting there. I don’t drink very often but I was about three quarters jarred up on top of Mt Errigal and I’m thinkin’ I can look over the whole world from here – and this guy’s head comes into view and he says, ‘can I have my picture taken with ya, Gerry?’

KS: And your family, how does it affect them?

GA: My son leads an absolutely normal life. I hope he isn’t affected, although he must be to some degree. We have thought him all the time that he’s his own person, that he isn’t me and that my views shouldn’t automatically be his views. And as far as I can see, he leads an absolutely normal life, doing all the normal things that young people should do. My wife however has had to put up with an awful lot of difficulties. I think that Republican wives, and the occasional Republican husband in the same position, put up with more, in fact, than their partners give them credit for. Without being patronising, we have remained very close but it does present massive difficulties, and it would be far better if it was different, but it isn’t. That’s the situation in which we live.

KS: How would it affect you if the situation hadn’t improved in six or seven years time and your only son Gearoid was sent down for life on an IRA – related murder charge?

GA: I’d be absolutely devastated. I have a young brother, the youngest, who was a very young child in 1970-71 and he’s now serving a very long prison sentence. That had a fairly major effect on all the older members of the family. Neither my mother of father or myself could have thought that things would still be the same when he got to be a young man. In 1971 our family home was so badly wrecked by the paratroopers that my family couldn’t move back in. My father was taken up in the first internment swoop, and my brother also. They were both very badly beaten. Dominic must have only been about two years old at that time. The house was then CS gassed a few times and he was carried unconscious from it at one stage. So he was only a wee baby at the time. I never thought that he’d end up the same way, exactly the same. It was the same to me as if he were my son. It doesn’t matter, though, whether it’s your son or my son, they’re all just victims of the struggle, whether they’re involved in it or victims of it.

KS: In a way that’s distancing yourself from the effects of violence. How would you react if it was your son tomorrow who was blown to bits or shot dead?

GA: I’d be absolutely shattered. But it isn’t meant to be a distancing statement. It is the exact reverse of that, because I live in a community in which many people’s sons and daughters have been victims. There wouldn’t be a street in West Belfast that didn’t have one family at least, and that’s a conservative estimate, with a son or daughter who was a victim through injury, imprisonment or a fatality.

KS: On Enniskillen, what was your personal reaction when you first heard the news?

GA: I was shocked first of all and then I went through a period of hoping that it wasn’t the IRA, and then on through various permutations of who it could have been. The whole thing seemed so crazy in political terms, in view of extradition and the Birmingham Six cases and so on. And it was also so contrary to IRA policy, and in particular to IRA actions in recent times, that I went through two shocks. One was that 11 people were wiped off the face of the earth, old people, young people, the people who were injured. And secondly, that the IRA had done it. I think that that traumatised Republicans as much as the bombing itself.

KS: You agree that those people had a right to commemorate their dead.

GA: Of course. I see the world wars as being a terrible waste of life – but those who had lost loved ones, and who had come together to commemorate it, had perfect right to do so.

KS: Would you consider paying compensation to the victims, seeing as you agree that it was a grave mistake?

GA: No, I’ve never considered it. We wouldn’t have the finances to make any sort of monetary compensation to anyone. But I’ve never thought of it at all.

KS: If the Enniskillen bomb had been directed at 11 members of the security forces on a different day, how would you have reacted?

GA: I can only deal with the reality of what did happen. I issued a statement the day after it happened rejecting what had happened and saying that my sympathy was with those that it happened to. I think that what occurred in Enniskillen is symptomatic of a great wrong. That’s not a justification for it, but underlying all this is the need to do something dramatic about the situation.

Those people who call themselves constitutionalists and who’re self righteous in their condemnations and who preach to the rest of us, they should now want to get in and tackle this problem instead of talking in and around and over and under it. Not one of them has advanced any reasonable suggestion or proposal or strategy to resolve this problem, either before Enniskillen or since.

KS: The Anglo-Irish agreement has been advance as a possible solution. If the controversies over stripsearching/the Diplock courts/unfair employment practices etc. were resolved, would you see the agreement as going some way towards meeting Republican demands?

GA: I personally don’t think that it would make a whole lot of difference, to be honest, whether there are three judges in a British Court or one. If there were meaningful improvements in the quality of life for people here, yes we would welcome it and have always had that position. But there has been no improvement in that quality, either in terms of the British forces and their attitudes, or in the discrimination against Catholics, which is as bad now as it ever was.

KS: IN the aftermath of Enniskillen, which is being seen as a disaster for the Republican movement, is there now a split between Sinn Féin and the IRA? After all no matter how you claim to be involved in looking for a political solution, an incident like Enniskillen makes all those gestures seem quite empty?

GA: There won’t be any split. I think that the IRA – even moreso than Sinn Féin, because they’re the ones responsible for planting the bomb – would now agree that the IRA itself has to learn the lesson of Enniskillen. And I have confidence that it will. However, the conditions that were created in the 26 Counties, for example the minutes silence and so on, have more to do with creating an atmosphere for the current raids, than with an existing solidarity to the victims of Enniskillen. In my view the government was engaged in a very cynical exercise. I know that I will offend people by saying that: many decent and good people quite rightly expressed their considerable revulsion at what happened, but it is the job of the Dublin government to do more than make empty gestures. If they had a consistent strategy of trying to persuade the British government, I would say fair play to them, but they have not! They’re engaged in a verbalised nationalism when in opposition and done the exact opposite when elected. There’s not one political party, or one Dublin government, who’s demanded that Britain drop the Government of Ireland Act, the main legislation on which it bases its claim to Northern Ireland. So I’m cynical about their sincerity.

KS: Is there anything that the Dublin government could do in the morning that would convince you that they are making sincere attempts to resolve the conflict?

GA: The first thing that they could do is scrap extradition, now. That would just be a very small gesture. The Mr Haughey should stand up and carry out all the actions upon which he was elected. The irony is that he’s now implementing a Fine Gael manifesto. People voted to get rid of a coalition and they got a new coalition which they didn’t vote for. But really it’s a matter of someone taking the biggest single political issue in Western Europe and standing up for their own people and telling a foreign government where it should get off.

KS: For many, the Eksund arms capture would point to some type of Armageddon type situation being planned by the IRA. What’s your view on that?

GA: I cannot comment with any validity on that. The IRA have made no comment on the issue at all. There have been three or four or five conflicting stories – they were for the IRA, they weren’t for the IRA and other groups on the continent but they were being landed in Ireland. But I have always tried to avoid hypothetical questions and to avoid speculation on any issue.

KS: Moving on to another hypothetical situation – if the proposals on extradition go through, are they going to lead to an increase in violence against security forces in the South?

GA: It hasn’t in the past. I can’t say it won’t in the future, but leaving aside hypothetical nature of the question, which I can say for certain is that submissive attitude on extradition strengthens Britain’s hand just as it lowers the morale of Irish people throughout the island – and that isn’t restricted to Republicans. It includes anyone at all that has any national feelings. It lowers our dignity. We are now in a situation that by choice of the government, Irish citizens are lesser citizens than any other nationality in the world, because no other government anywhere in the world will extradite it citizens on demand.

KS: Do you think that you, personally, would have the courage to call a halt to the armed struggle?

GA: Certainly. Certainly if there were conditions in which there could be a total demilitarisation of the situation and an end to offensive action by all military or armed organisations, I would have no problem. I’ve actually gone further than that in past – in an exchange of views with the Catholic hierarchy, I said that I would be prepared to consider an alternative, unarmed way of struggle, to attain Irish independence. If someone would outline such a course I would not only be prepared to listen, but I would be prepared to work in that direction. The difficulty is that no one has outlined a scenario by which unarmed struggle would achieve Irish independence and peace. The British therefore set the agenda, the British conditions are that they will hold on six Irish Counties, by military force, and therefore you get armed struggle as a natural consequence of that.

KS: Could you name just one attainable short-term resolution that might constitute the first step on the road to peace?

GA: There are numerous short-term objectives which could be attained, but there has been no real attempt to find a solution yet. There have been attempts to bolster up the status quo, to whitewash the status quo, to in some way reform the situation. What’s being engaged in now, both North and South, are the politics of illusion. The only solution must lie in the right to national self-determination. No political party North or South, purporting to be nationalists and purporting to seek a solution has actually stood up to the British and said "we want you to leave". A solution will only happen in the context of the condition of Irish national self-determination.

KS: In what context then, could you see yourself attempting to persuade the IRA to lay down their arms?

GA: There’s no point in anyone attempting to persuade the IRA to lay down their arms while the British hold the Six Counties under military occupation. Everyone knows the IRA’s position. They want British withdrawal and once that happens, there’ll be no need for anyone to try and convince the IRA. There aren’t many military careerists in the IRA, there isn’t any Sandhurst, there aren’t any Generals seeking lucrative careers in the Republican armed services. It is an organisation of political and politicised civilians who have taken to arms because of the particular situation in which they live. What’s happening now in the Six Counties is part unfinished business of what was happening sixty years ago.

KS: What about the large numbers of Irish people who feel that no piece of land is worth shedding a single drop of blood for?

GA: Well, you see all of that’s relative. You have to deal with the reality. That means that the situation in the 26 Counties, with all its faults, would have been better left in the circumstances which existed here in 1914, before the War of Independence. At the moment what we have is a neo-colonial situation in the 26 Counties, where Dublin is in effect a junior partner to London, and the British government has control over the North East of the country.

KS: If something like Enniskillen were to happen again, would that be the final blow to the idea that the armed struggle is an effective way to achieve political change?

GA: It would certainly undermine the validity of armed struggle and I think that it would be very difficult for Republicans to continue against a background of a similar disaster. However, the IRA in their public statements, have said that they accept absolutely the mistake of Enniskillen. I would presume that that implies that they will ensure that it doesn’t happen again. As far as I’m concerned, it can’t happen again.

KS: Can you see any scenario in the near future in which you would be sitting down at a conference table discussing the ending of violence in the Northern context?

GA: Well, y’see, I have to object a wee bit to the phrase ‘ending violence’, right? Violence is institutionalised violence, violence is the violence of discrimination, it is the violence of the State, the violence of the penal system, it’s the violence of inequality – and there’s also physical force violence. It’s true, the meaning of the word has been narrowed to mean simply armed struggle or physical force, as pursued by Republicans. Most of my discussions, and most of my statements, apart from those concerning constituency matters, are aimed at either opening up dialogue, stressing the need for such a dialogue, or are actually part of even a semaphore-type dialogue to seek an end to the causes of violence. Violence is a symptom of the problem. Once the problem is resolved, everything else in a logical and natural way, will stop.

KS: Can you see the IRA resorting to kidnapping as a method of raising funds at any stage in the future?

GA: No, I think that whatever desperate conditions drove republicans in the past to the abduction, for example, of Don Tidy, the conclusion to all of that would have persuaded those in favour of such a tactic that it wasn’t a useful one. Following on from that, the antics of Dessie O’Hare have been used to discredit the whole Republican movement. His actions have nothing to do with the Republican struggle.

KS: What about the assessment of O’Hare as being psychotic?

GA: I wouldn’t get involved in that at all. I think it would be very foolish of me to get into those kind of descriptions. They have been used and abused too often by those who should know better. I have no personal remarks about Dessie O’Hare. I just want to say that he has no part in the Republican struggle, but in fact helps to undermine it.

KS: What’s been your own biggest disappointment to date?

GA: I don’t know. I don’t know to be honest. Life’s full of disappointments, some personal that would mean nothing to anyone else, some political and some really human.

KS: The personal ones?

GA: I … well this sounds very trite, but I would like… this isn’t possible, because it goes against my experience, goes right against the grain… I would like if there was some magic formula, some shortcut to change the situation from what exists at present. Some way in which the conditions for peace and justice and democracy could be built. Whatever political logic I have tells me that it could never be the case, that it needs work and push, but it would be nice in a sort of perfect world, if injustices, no matter who’s responsible, could be rectified, and the pain forgotten, and the injustices only a memory, except in so far as they make you want to make sure that they don’t happen again.

KS: On a lighter note, it’s been said that you’re a fan of Christy Moore. How about the Wolfe Tones?

GA: They’re okay. There are one or two records by the Wolfe Tones at home. They wouldn’t be played that often. I wouldn’t say though that I was a big fan of the Wolfe Tones, or that I was indifferent to them at the same time. I remember being down in Galway one time, and a friend brought me to Teach Furbo because they were playing there. I actually got a bit annoyed about it because there were one thousand people going ‘AYE AYE AYE’ – I didn’t like it because of the actual agony of the reality of what I’d just come from. Maybe that’s a bit too puritanical…

I’ve actually discovered to my surprise that my tastes are quite ‘catholic’ in that I like all sorts of music. I think Christy Moore’s fantastic – there’s no better experience than going to one of his concerts. But I’ve discovered also that I like classical music as well. Brahms, Beethoven, and of course Woody Guthrie, Clannad, De Dannan. I’ve even been known to play "The Joshua Tree" even though I think Bono stinks…

KS: You’re a practising Catholic. Are you a devout one?

GA: When someone asks that, I often feel like saying ‘it’s really none of your business.’ I’m a practising Catholic but not a very good one. But yes, I consider myself a Catholic and I’m doing my best.

KS: There’s a rumour that the new Archbishop of Dublin might be called upon to excommunicate you. What’s your reaction to that?

GA: Being excommunicated? That wouldn’t bother me at all. Y’see those types of people, be they Archbishops or Alan Dukes or Garret Fitzgerald, or other people with a political axe to grind – I never feel any pressure from any of them. That’s because I don’t feel isolated, and because the people I represent are more important to me. But honestly I’d be surprised if that happened.

KS: You seem to be cynical about the Catholic hierarchy?

GA: I would be cynical about their statements. I know that they’re as heavily engaged in political wheeling and dealing as any association of human beings. But I would be as cynical about their attitudes on the National question. I don’t have any problem with contraception. I think that divorce should be allowed as a civil right. I think that there are circumstances in which women should have abortions – I think that it’s wrong to censor attitudes – many of those who cause the problem are hypocritically the loudest in condemning the victims. But I really thought that the result of the divorce referendum offered one more argument for having a national democracy with a good injection of radical Protestantism.

KS: Would you disagree with the Hamilton ruling?

GA: Oh it was absolutely wrong. People should have the right to this information.

KS: There would be a feeling among feminists that the Republican movement is very hard on women – for instance the wives of Republicans who have affairs while their husbands are in prison are often treated quite badly.

GA: I don’t think so. People might have that view but it isn’t my experience.

KS: So you wouldn’t see the Republican movement as being one that is dominated by the make ethos.

GA: Yes it is but the Republican movement is part of Irish society and therefore would reflect to some degree the sexism that is inherent in Irish society and the disadvantage that women suffer in that society is reflected to some extent in the Movement. The difference is that we’re trying to change that.

KS: So you yourself would do housework, for example?

GA: Obviously my wife does the bulk of the housework and the ironing and so on. I wouldn’t do my equal share of it but I think that if it was a situation where I expected a partner to do everything, then I would be looking for a servant instead of a partner. I don’t want to give the impression that I’m a whizz-kid around the house, I’m not, but I know how to cope with it. If there’s someone sick I’d do it. Jail is a great educator in that regard. But even with progressive people and so-called male feminists, it’s still a case if you go back to someone’s flat of him sayin’ ‘g’wan and put on the tea there, girl.’

KS: You’ve been described as being a murder executive by ‘Sir’ Jack Hermon who says that you and a number of the Ard Chomhairle of Sinn Féin also serve on the IRA Army Council. How do you answer that?

GA: The accusation itself is undermined by the person who made it. Jack Hermon is the boss of what I would describe as being a terrorist organisation. He’s the boss of a paramilitary organisation which is sectarian in its composition and policies.

When Jack Harmon said that he was preparing people for this morning’s raids, I know that we are in a situation here were there is a conflict. I think that most people don’t understand how tragic it is, in terms of human conflict disruption. That’s the kind of thing that’s thrown at them periodically in the aftermath of tragedy like Enniskillen, but it’s still going on between such disasters. And rather than be engaged in trite condemnations, it needs to be said that the situation could be resolved.

Enniskillen didn’t have to happen, Loughall didn’t have to happen, all those incidents didn’t have to happen. And there needs to be a serious attempt made, it’s been by one side to try and gain ascendancy over the other.

KS: So there’s no military solution?

GA: There’s no military solution, none whatsoever. Military solutions by either of the two main protagonists only mean more tragedies. There can only be a political solution. And Dublin has failed to show any vestige of any political solution. They don’t give a damn at all, as far as I can see. It can be resolved with a bit of vision, a bit of courage, a wee bit of standing up for ourselves. All these things can become a bad memory rather then what they are now, an actual daily reality of life. Somebody can be killed today – maybe while we’re sitting here somebody’s already being killed. It’ll get three minutes on the news, and we’ll see a funeral on television, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s a British soldier, an IRA volunteer, a civilian victim of either of the two factions – that doesn’t even penetrate people’s heads.

We’re living in the actuality, the reality that is Northern Ireland.