Gerry Adams, the man who took the gun out of Irish politics...

maithanfear · 22-01-2013 7:05pm #1

During the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, comparisons were made between Gerry Adams career and Michael Collins. Both were leaders of the IRA and both brought the IRA to the negotiating table. However, both have left very different legacies, Collins will often be noted as 'the man who took the gun out of Irish politics'. But Adams has never been afforded this praise and has always been identified with the Northern Bank Robbery, the disappearance of Jean McConville and what not.

The Bloody Sunday inquiry attempted to establish whether the Parachute Regiment had opened fire on Anti Internment Demonstrators in response to IRA gunfire. The Parachute Regiment had always used this lie to justify their actions on Bloody Sunday until it was disproven in the Saville Inquiry.

However, if you examine Collin's career, you will find that the actions of the British Army on Bloody Sunday in Dublin, were a direct response to the murder of thirteen soldiers the night before. Yet you will never hear any responsibility of this event attributed to Michael Collins.

Nowadays, the general consensus is that the actions of the Old IRA were respectable and the actions of the Provisional IRA were deplorable. I think the underlining cause of this is an attempt by the Irish government to be as diplomatic as possible in relation to their northern counterparts notwithstanding the involvement and guilty conduct of their northern counterparts in that war.

So at what time will people be able to see that Adams, like Collins, was a peacemaker as well as a military leader?