Gerry Adams could simply have said, when he was first asked about being a member of the IRA, that 'for legal reasons he could not admit to having been a member of the IRA,' and kept on repeating it every other time it was put to him.
He wouldn't have been admitting he was a member of the IRA nor would he have been denying it.
However Adams continues to not just deny having been a member of the IRA, he categorically denies it.
Giving evidence in the case against him Adams said: 'I was never a member of the IRA or it's Army Council, and I never held any role or rank within the IRA.'
This statement from the veteran journalist John Ware just about sums Adams' denials up:
. . . In his statement, he continued: “It clearly grated with many of them that when Adams said that he strongly supported the armed struggle, his denial of actual Provisional IRA membership allowed him to avoid taking personal responsibility for their actions.
Adams seemingly elevated himself to a higher moral plane than the Provisional IRA, when it was they who were sacrificing life and limb – as they would see it – for a cause Adams was leading.
In short, they saw Adams’s denial of Provisional IRA membership as insufferably hypocritical.
Denying the past only ensures that others will continue to dig into it until they uncover the truth.
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Thomas Dixie Elliot is a Derry artist and a former H Block Blanketman. Follow Dixie Elliot on Twitter @IsMise_Dixie |
Maybe he actually believes he was never in it!
ReplyDeleteBe interesting to see the outcome of this court case. If the decision goes against him, I wonder what his next step might be
ReplyDeleteCivil case withdrawn, nothing sticks to our Gerry.!!
ReplyDeleteObviously somebody has tapped them on the shoulder.
DeleteIt became evident that their case was not going to hold up. That been the case they would have had to pay Adam s legal costs, rumoured to be at 200,000 pound,
ReplyDeleteOut of curiosity, would Gerry have that sort of money at hand ?
Or who will foot that bill.
Good point weren't shinners supposed to be on the industrial wage?
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