Latest "Get Gerry Adams effort" is led by deeply troubled woman -- Dolours Price has long history of mental illness after force-feeding

Political activist and former volunteer for the Provisional IRA Dolours Price
(Photo: Pacemaker)

Long ago and far away there seems little doubt that Gerry Adams was a senior figure in the IRA in West Belfast.

How could he not be? His neighborhood was under siege from the British Army and every able-bodied man back in the days when the Troubles were at their height was involved.

What is interesting about recent attempts to get Adams to admit the past is how the context is never given.

Decades of  complete Unionist misrule led to a tinder-box situation after civil rights marchers were batoned and beaten off the streets in 1968 and 1969.

It all  inevitably exploded and then all hell broke loose when the British Army was called in to defend the indefensible status quo we had Bloody Sunday and a fully fledged IRA campaign. That was the Northern Ireland that Gerry Adams grew up in

Dolours Price, now Gerry Adams chief accuser was caught up in it too, coming from a strong Republican family.

In March 1973 she was arrested on board a plane going to Ireland just as a 300 pound bomb detonated at the Old Bailey courts and one person was killed and many injured Her sister Marian was arrested alongside her.

Her time in prison did not go well. She and her sister went on a hunger strike and were force- fed for 200 days an horrific experience which has caused much of the mental trauma she experiences today.

Almost 40 years on, Dolours Price the former wife of actor Stephen Rea, is sadly still suffering the effects.

“She had a history of psychiatric problems and substance abuse,” said journalist Ed Moloney.

“She has been diagnosed with PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder], had been hospitalized repeatedly, and....(is)  taking strong psychotropic drugs.

Indeed, on the day she spoke to [The Irish News] she was on day leave from St Patrick’s psychiatric hospital in Dublin.” Moloney said referring to the controversial interview she gave  to that newspaper where she first alleged Adams sent informers to their death.

She is unrepentant about her past and makes no bones that she wants to destroy Adams and the process if she can.

The Irish Sunday Times quoted her this weekend  saying she defended her acts while in the IRA and actually enjoyed them. “It was an exciting time, there was no real order or structure to everyday life, the war had taken away all normal routine ... I should be ashamed to admit there was fun in it in those days,” she said.

The same Sunday Times article notes that in 2001, Price was found guilty  in a Dublin court of stealing prescriptions. “She seems to have an alcohol problem but is taking steps to address it,” said Judge Thomas Fitzpatrick .

Five years later Price was disallowed access to Maghaberry prison, where she was visiting a dissident republican prisoner “She was verbally abusive and threatening and was in no condition to be allowed into the visiting area,” said a senior Prison Service source.

She has also received three convictions for theft in recent years and has attempted suicide.

Little wonder Adams does not feel it is politic to pursue her accusations against him in court.

Last weekend he stated: “I am not of a mind to trail Dolours Price through the courts . . . she is unwell.”

Those who are putting her up to the statements she is making, given that she is a seriously ill woman have a lot to answer for it seems to me.

She should be allowed time and space to try and recuperate from her many problems It is sad to see her used as a “Get Gerry Adams” vehicle by sections of the media.

In NYC Martin McGuinness talks Queen Elizabeth and peace in our time -- Sinn Fein leader recalls historic handshake and how old enemies change

Martin McGuinness

Peace comes dropping slow in Northern Ireland.

In New York this week, Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness recalled how just very recently hardline unionist Willie McCrea finally greeted him with a “hello” and recognized his existence—after 30 years or so of sharing the political space, first as enemies, now as government partners.

"That shows how the peace process has advanced nowadays," McGuinness said in an interview at our office.

Facts on the ground, communities working together, North and South, in ways that would never have been possible during the bad old days. New roads, new hospitals, and new business connections are all cementing the most successful peace process of the modern era.

Then of course there was the meeting and handshake between the former IRA commander and the Commander of the British Armed Forces, Queen Elizabeth, in Belfast recently.

“Haven’t washed my hand since,” McGuinness joked before getting serious.

He told the Queen that he acknowledged the hurt that the death of Lord Mountbatten, her relative and close confidante, who was blown up by the IRA in 1979, had caused her.

He didn’t try to slide the Mountbatten issue to one side or to elide the deep harm done in her majesty’s name to generations of nationalists.

It was an extraordinary moment he said, one that he had prepared for since the Queen made a major effort during her visit to the Irish Republic last year.

The debates in Northern Ireland these days are more likely about water rates than The Troubles. The fact that McGuinness was away from the North during the height of the Orange marching scene sends its own signal of normality.

We noted that all was changed, utterly illustrated by the fact that Lennox the dog who was condemned to die hogged the headlines over the July 12th build up.

The protestors outside the British and Irish consulates in New York last week were for Lennox, not the IRA, or attacking British perfidy.

Such is the new Northern Ireland that Martin McGuinness now jointly oversees with Peter Robinson the DUP leader.

It is a different landscape where much work needs to be done but the future looks bright indeed.

To insiders, McGuinness being greeted by Willie McCrea was every bit as big a deal as shaking hands with the Queen. Peace will continue to fall slowly but surely on the land.

Sinn Fein’s Gerry Adams as Ireland’s next Prime Minister? -- New poll makes it a possibility after the next election

Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams

Gerry Adams as Ireland’s next prime minister may not be as fanciful as many think.

The real prospect of Sinn Fein leading the next Irish government is now apparent.

The latest opinion poll in the Irish Times shows Sinn Fein leaping to 24 per cent support with fellow opposition members Fianna Fail at 17 per cent and independents at 15 per cent.

Gerry Adams is now the most popular party leader after an eight point jump put him ahead of Enda Kenny
That combined total of opposition votes puts them at 56 per cent, well ahead of the governing coalition of Fine Gael and Labor who amass only 42 per cent of the vote.

It is clear that Sinn Fein are having the Labour party for lunch, the Labourites are down to 10 per cent with the vast majority of their voters shifting to Sinn Fein.

Even Fianna Fail, architects of the economic mess, are making a comeback because they are in opposition

It is inevitable in a massive economic downturn that the government parties take the heat. But the Labour Party is especially being decimated.

It is always thus it seems. Minority parties in governments --see Liberal Party in England, are usually the ones who take the brunt of the criticism.

The poll is yet another milestone for Sinn Fein who have commenced an inexorable march towards power in Ireland North and South.

While the shadow of the North’s war loomed large even in the recent presidential election, as time passes such concerns will disappear.

The next election is not due until about 2015, by which time Sinn Fein will have had several years to consolidate power.

They happen to be very good at that and are finally luring good young candidates in the Irish Republic to match the calibre of their leaders in Northern Ireland.

The European treaty poll this week should pass, according to all the experts and polls but one wonders if there is not a hidden no vote lurking in the undergrowth.

Certainly, given the statistics of this latest poll, if anti-government voters turn out in numbers they could easily defeat it.

There will be many nervous faces until the votes are counted.

Bobby Sands death was moment when all changed in Northern Ireland -- Turning point for ‘The Troubles’ reached 31 years ago this week

It was 31 years ago yesterday that Bobby Sands died on hunger strike in Northern Ireland.

I was living in San Francisco at the time, 6,000 miles from Ireland, but the anger was palpable among the Irish American community there.

We gathered outside the British consulate as a group walked behind a mock coffin chanting “Bobby Sands MP” in recognition that he had been an elected member of the British parliament.

In retrospect letting Bobby Sands die was one of the greatest mistakes the British made in the history of Northern Ireland.

His election before he died to the House of Commons showed the Sinn Fein leadership, still very much the junior partner to the IRA in 1981, that politics could actually work and bring tens of thousands out onto the streets and into polling booths.

Sinn Fein learned well and the political evolution began on that May night that the death of Sands was announced.

I for one, considered that the Sands death was a turning point in my beliefs.

Up to that point I had little time for the IRA, believing that the frequent atrocities and bombings were totally counterproductive in terms of building worldwide support for a united Ireland. John Hume’s “agreed Ireland” seemed a better concept.

I would not have been caught dead at an IRA man’s mock coffin demonstration outside a British consulate before Bobby Sands.

I saw many others like me on that night, people who had a deep ambivalence about the situation in Northern Ireland but who were utterly inflamed and upset at what Margaret Thatcher had just allowed to happen.

From Sands' death on, Sinn Fein began to take more and more prominence in the republican debate.

It is a long haul but there is a direct line from there to the peace process and the ultimate entry of Sinn Fein into shared power in Northern Ireland, an idea that would have been inconceivable that May evening 31 years ago.

But it happened, and the stage was set with the death of Bobby Sands.

As Yeats remarked, “all changed, changed utterly” from that point on.

End to ETA war in Basque country a great boost for Sinn Fein and Irish peace process strategy

Arnaldo Otegi and Gerry Adams, 2007

The debate about Sinn Fein and their role in Irish politics will continue long beyond this current presidential election in Ireland.

But there is no question that they have now helped create another major opportunity for peace in the long running guerrilla war in Basque country on the French/Spanish border.

ETA, the IRA equivalent, have announced an end to their armed campaign after meeting with Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams and several other peacemakers, including former Irish leader Bertie Ahern and former UN Secretary Genera Kofi Annan.

It seems the lessons of the Irish peace process are many and varied and that its positive impact is still being seen worldwide.

ETA tried and failed to end their campaign several times, but this time it seems final. Their political wing Batasuna has been ineffective, unlike Sinn Fein in convincing ETA to take that last vital step.

That now appears to have changed

There is great credit due to all concerned.

Gerry Adams has welcomed the ETA announcement that they will end their armed conflict in Spain.

"I welcome the decisive and positive terms of ETA’s response to Monday’s ‘Declaration’ in Donostia-San Sebastian by the International Conference group.

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“Following our deliberations the International Group expressed the opinion that ‘it is possible to end, the last armed confrontation in Europe’.

“We called upon ETA to “make a public declaration of the definitive cessation of all armed action and to request talks with the governments of Spain and France to address exclusively the consequences of the conflict.

“I believe that their statement today meets that requirement and I would urge the governments of Spain and France to welcome it and agree to talks exclusively to deal with the consequences of the conflict.

“These next steps should be about promoting reconciliation, addressing the issue of victims and recognizing that a serious effort has to be made to heal personal and social wounds.

“There are other issues which will need to be addressed and which can act as confidence-building measures within the process.

“For example, among these are the issue of prisoners and of demilitarizing the environment and of respecting and acknowledging the democratic rights of all political parties and treating them as equals.

“At a time when Batasuna is banned and leaders like Arnaldo Otegi, who is totally committed in my view to peace, are imprisoned, the use of confidence-building measures by the Spanish state is very important.”

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