Gerry Adams’ reinvention as a kindly uncle figure is insulting

Of all the indignities that Sinn Féin inflicts daily on the victims of IRA terrorism in Northern Ireland, surely one of the most grotesque is the reinvention of Gerry Adams as a kindly, eccentric uncle figure. The former party president, and godfather of violent republicanism, has cultivated a quirky image in recent years, tweeting about his teddy bears and rubber ducks, professing his love of nude trampolining and, now, announcing that he is set to publish a cookery book, just in time for Christmas.

At the West Belfast Festival, or Feile an Phobail, Adams told an audience of admirers that ‘The Negotiator’s Cookbook’ will contain recipes that sustained Sinn Fein’s negotiating team during long hours of peace process talks. Naturally, he couldn’t resist a folksy swipe at the invidious Brits who “never fed us, they never had any food,” (unlike, presumably, those hospitable Irish republican scallywags who were as liberal with the soda bread as they were with the Semtex).

Adams’ announcement caused much mirth in newspapers and on social media, which served up a smorgasbord of culinary puns. We were treated to riffs on the ‘peas process’, the ‘good fry-day’ agreement and a suggestion that the book be renamed ‘When Hunger Strikes’.

It was all good fun, except that, as with most of his japes, the laughter helps to deflect questions about Adams’ role in the IRA and humanise a movement that engaged in a campaign of brutal political violence. Let’s face it, that was almost certainly his intention. Sinn Féin’s attempts to distort the history of the Troubles are unremitting.

SDLP councillor Mairia Cahill, who was a teenage republican activist and claims that senior IRA figures covered up her rape, certainly didn’t see the funny side. She described Gerry Adams’ plans as “sick” and demanded that he apologise to victims who “are continually traumatised by the IRA and Sinn Féin”. Ms Cahill alleges that the IRA interrogated her and forced her to confront her alleged attacker, during an internal ‘inquiry’ that involved meeting Adams during the West Belfast Festival, back in 2000.

Of course, the former Sinn Féin president now claims he was never a member of the IRA, but no credible journalist or historian accepts his denial and most believe that he was part of the organisation’s ruling Army Council. In 1978, he was arrested the day after the Provisionals bombed the La Mon House hotel near Belfast, incinerating 12 people who were attending a dinner dance, including members of the Irish Collie Club.

Two of his former colleagues, Brendan Hughes and Delours Price, claimed that Adams personally ordered the abduction and murder of Jean McConville, a mother of ten who was accused of passing information to the security forces. He was arrested in connection with those assertions in 2014, but the Public Prosecution Service later announced that there was insufficient evidence to bring charges.

Whether or not you believe Adams’ account of the past or the many authoritative voices who say he’s talking nonsense, for decades he explained the IRA’s perspective to the rest of the world. In latter years, he became the most influential figure reframing republican violence as a campaign to secure rights supposedly withheld by unionists and the British government.

By this formulation, the cold-eyed, sectarian fanatics who prowled border areas in the 70s and 80s, hoping to butcher Protestant farmers and off-duty police officers, were actually kind-hearted progressives, fighting to secure same-sex marriage and liberal abortion laws.

This warped version of history might seem grimly laughable to anyone who lived through the Troubles, but it’s gained some traction, particularly among younger Sinn Féin voters. The party continues to portray itself as a guarantor of ‘rights’, ‘equality’ and ‘respect’, even as it abuses, lectures and hectors its political opponents.

Adams has been pivotal in developing this tactic and it was Adams who stripped away the cuddly jargon to explain its mechanics in all their breath-taking cynicism, at a meeting in County Fermanagh. The point of employing concepts like equality, he told a crowd of Sinn Féin supporters, “is actually to break these bastards…. that’s the Trojan horse of the entire republican strategy”. With typical short-sightedness, many unionists seemed more offended by the fruity language, than by Adams’ plans to ‘break’ them.

The type of ‘respect’ that republicans think they should be accorded involves confronting victims with regular celebrations and glorification of terrorism. The Feile an Phobail festival itself is funded lavishly by taxpayers’ money, through bodies like the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, but it is steeped in the lore of the violent republicanism and it was founded by Sinn Féin.

This year’s festivities culminated with pro-IRA flags and pro-IRA chanting at a concert by ‘Irish rebel band’ The Wolfe Tones. Meanwhile, Belfast’s 18th century Linen Hall library, a tourist attraction with plentiful exhibition space and important collections, is set to close at weekends after its application for an Arts Council grant of £25,000 was rejected.

That’s the Northern Ireland that Gerry Adams and his ilk have contributed to building; a place where victims are insulted routinely, terrorists are lionised and their apologists assume the moral high ground. We can all have a laugh at this ridiculous man and his cookbook, but it becomes much less funny set against his ongoing crusade to distort history and justify the horror inflicted by the IRA.