The life history of an exemplary Provisional republican: Gerry Adams and the politics of biography

ABSTRACT

This article examines the biographical writing devoted to the critical individual in the history of the Provisional Irish republican movement, Gerry Adams. As President of Sinn Féin from 1983 until he stepped down in February 2018, Adams has been viewed by many as the key figure in the leadership of the Provisional movement, despite his long-standing and continuing denial of membership in its armed ‘wing’, the Irish Republican Army. He has been interpreted as being instrumental in shaping, if not determining the evolution of Provisional republicanism, which began as a movement committed to violent insurrection in the cause of Irish unity and, after causing approximately 49 per cent of the deaths during the ‘Troubles’, subsequently espoused a largely non-violent political strategy in the post-Belfast Agreement era after 1998. This article takes a comparative approach to the three biographies of Adams published to date, by Colm Keena [(1990). A biography of Gerry Adams. Cork: Mercier], David Sharrock and Mark Devenport [(1997). Man of war, man of peace? The unauthorised biography of Gerry Adams. London: Macmillan] and Malachi O’Doherty [(2017). Gerry Adams: An unauthorised life. London: Faber and Faber]. The argument pursued here is that the biographical study of political life histories of emblematic individuals, such as Adams, may shed significant light upon the trajectory and character of the parties/movements which they lead. Moreover, the academic study of biographical writing should be an important resource for political scientists and contemporary historians, although there has been a tendency to marginalise this approach from the mainstream of the discipline of political science.

KEYWORDS:

• Northern Ireland
• Sinn Féin
• Gerry Adams
• biography
• Provisional Irish Republican Army

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 The Provisional republican movement produced a commemorative publication (Tírghrá – Ireland’s Patriot Dead, 2002) that listed 364 republicans who were killed during the ‘Troubles’ (volunteers of the IRA, members of SF, as well as those who belonged to affiliated organisations such as the women of Cumann Na mBan, and the youth of Fianna Éireann).

2 John Hume of the Social Democratic and Labour Party led his party from 1979 until his retirement in 2001. Ian Paisley led the Democratic Unionist Party from its foundation in 1971 until he stood down in 2008. With Paisley’s retirement, Adams was unmatched in terms of the longevity of his leadership in Northern Ireland, apart from his friend, Martin McGuinness.

3 For further evidence of the critique of Adams’ leadership in this period, see Mick Fealty, ‘It’s time for Gerry Adams to go’, Guardian, 23 July 2009; Conor McMorrow, ‘Is Sinn Féin still Adams’s family?’, Sunday Tribune, 10 August 2008; Malachi O’Doherty, ‘Could Gerry Adams be living on borrowed time?’, Belfast Telegraph, 16 May 2008.

4 Arrington’s approach is particularly insightful, and illustrates some of the main elements in contemporary biographical writing. It is also a ‘double biography’, undertaking to analyse the intertwined lives of both Constance and Casimir Markievicz.

5 For details of this ‘small group of trusted confidants and advisors’, see Moloney (2002, p. 401).

6 For details of this controversy during the fiftieth anniversary of the civil rights movement, see SF National chairperson Declan Kearney’s article, ‘We have come Full Circle: Northern Nationalism has Politically Remobilised’ (http://eamonnmallie.com; 29 January 2018). And for responses, see former SDLP leading figure, Bríd Rodgers, ‘Is Sinn Féin so ashamed of its own past that it has to rewrite it?’ (http://eamonnmallie.com; 1 February 2018). The veteran civil rights activist from Derry, Eamonn McCann, made the comment that SF was seeking to ‘colonise’ the history of the movement (Irish News, 2 February 2018).

7 Among many others, see the testimony by Adams’ erstwhile close comrade, Brendan Hughes, in Moloney (2010, pp. 76–77; 106–107).

8 For example, Adams led a ‘March for Truth’, organised by SF, in West Belfast in 2007. In his speech, he called for full disclosure of the British state’s role in ‘violence and collusion’ with loyalist paramilitary ‘death squads’. It was surely predictable that Adams was condemned in many quarters for the apparent hypocrisy of his call for full disclosure (Hopkins, 2013, p. 37).

9 Interview with Malachi O’Doherty by William Crawley, BBC Radio Ulster, 4 September 2017. The transcript is available at http://thepensivequill.am/2017/09/inconvenience-of-conviction.html

10 Perhaps unsurprisingly, there was a hostile two-page review of O’Doherty’s biography in An Phoblacht (October 2017, 12–13). The reviewer argued that:

the terminology used in the book is largely pejorative to the point of Establishment, anti-republican propaganda. […] Reading this book is a waste of time. […] it offers nothing new except an insight into the mind of Malachi O’Doherty. And that is not a good place to visit.