Don’t be fooled by Gerry Adams’ Christmas rebrand

Did Gerry Adams ever work for MI5? The allegations that he did are not new – even if they have been rigorously denied. But if that lurid speculation is true then his handler surely deserves a medal. 

In recent years, Adams – who was never, of course, in the IRA – has undergone something of a rebrand. The incendiary former Sinn Fein leader now preens as an elder statesman in Irish politics. He also styles himself as a figure of fun, happily revealing how he enjoys trampolining naked with his dog. But even as you cannot unsee that image, don't be fooled by the cuddly reinvention.

In his most recent outing, Adams makes a brief and spectacularly offensive reappearance from retirement as a carol singer in a charity video. Here is a man who could make buttering toast look creepy, appearing uninvited late at night on the doorstep warbling a pastiche of ‘Deck the Halls’. His song ends instead with the Republican war cry, ‘Tiocfaidh ar la,’ or 'our day will come'.

These words are well known in the island of Ireland. For victims of the IRA, they were often the last words a person heard in this world as their executioners dispatched them. The rancid cherry on top of this production was the home owner saying with a wink ‘they haven’t gone away you know’. This is, of course, the same remark once made by Adams in the early years of the peace process. In that infamous sly comment to the faithful some years earlier, he was talking about the IRA; his words were taken by some to mean that Provisional IRA decommissioning was entirely cosmetic.

Several days of outrage from victims of IRA terrorism followed the release of the carol singing video. Ann Travers, whose sister was murdered by the IRA in 1984 as she walked home from church, described the video as 'sick'. Finally, the unfortunately named ‘Ferry Clever’ – the card company whose video Adams appeared in – has seen sense. In a statement, it said:

'Whilst our business is based around satirical comedy, it was never our intention to offend anyone.'

Apart from anything else, this hardly sounds like a business model that will get them through Christmas. But what about Adams? Will he apologise for appearing in this video? It seems unlikely.

Adams has been retired from Sinn Fein’s leadership for three years but he still retains his honorary title of narcissist-in-chief. That must cause the current notional co-leadership of Michelle O'Neill and Mary Lou McDonald no end of a headache as they struggle to divest the party from the whiff of cordite.

They have their work cut out in their attempt to move the party on from its fetid past. The old guard in the IRA Army council is widely thought to be still calling the shots. Drew Harris, commissioner of the Republic of Ireland's police, said as much in 2020 when he agreed with his Northern counterparts that the party remains overseen by the council. Sinn Fein has dismissed such claims as 'nonsense', but is anyone fooled?

Here is a party, after all, that once appointed a convicted IRA terrorist as it’s first ‘Unionist outreach officer.’ This is a party which commemorates IRA hunger strikers but which turns a blind eye to the victims of the IRA's bombs. It reveals either the blackest sense of humour at best or, as with Adams' latest antics, a depraved indifference to the suffering caused by 30 years of futile sectarian insurgency.

While Adams probably doesn't regret his appearance in this video, it looks like political expediency will this time win over the routine sullen defiance this crass insensitivity usually elicits from the party faithful. The number of senior Shinners sent out to gently deplore Adams' behaviour now just exceeds those who take the traditional line that it was all just a bit of laugh. 

If the polls are right, Sinn Fein is within sight of government in the Republic. Victory depends on bringing a few more per cent of voters onside. Adams has switched from being the path to victory to a bump in the road. Sinn Fein’s old uncle Gerry is about to be boarded back into the Connolly House attic.

There is some suggestion that McDonald could soon issue an apology for past IRA atrocities. This is something Sinn Fein, their steadfast cheerleaders through the IRA's years of filling graves, has never done without a skip full of caveats. Whether this will be cynical electioneering or the first welcome signs of democratic maturity remains to be seen. In the meantime, at least, the party’s over for Ireland’s bearded bleak Santa.