STONE COLD GERRY
Adams is a statue, a symbol of the past and leader of a party struggling to forge its future
LEINSTER House is a small parliamentary complex and those working there do so in close proximity to one another. You become inured to bumping into household names in the corridors. Often visitors get close to their heroes and can be heard whispering with glee: ‘Oh, there’s Enda Kenny, he’s smaller than he looks on telly.’
I find none of them particularly exciting, with one exception. Though Gerry Adams has been a member of Dáil Éireann for more than five years, I’m still not accustomed to seeing him in such a mundane setting.
When I see him relaxing on a bench in the sunshine, or when he flashes his expensive, movie star smile, it causes a flutter of anxiety. It is like an intimidating image from a Belfast republican mural has come alive.
Any Irish child of the 1980s will most associate that terrible war in Northern Ireland and Britain with one man – Gerry Adams. And we see this living monument to ‘the Struggle’ in work every day.
Adams is a living statue, a symbol of the past. He is not a modern, deft, agile politician. Many in the grassroots of his movement have such regard for him that they can’t admit is time for him to move on. He has such overweening regard for himself that he won’t countenance retirement.
HIS HARSH Northern accent, when it delivers his often illinformed thoughts in the Dáil, reminds anyone listening of darker times. His media performances in the recent election were appalling. He is not acquainted with any of the major briefs – economics, health, education. This should be a basic requirement of a political leader (though Enda Kenny appears to get away with it too).
Some in the party had hoped that Dublin Central TD Mary Lou McDonald would take over. Wellgroomed and polished, she is attractive to the middle classes that Sinn Féin wanted to court.
And for a while the party seemed willing to move towards the centrist politics pursued by Mary Lou.
Days before the general election campaign swung into gear, I spoke to a key Sinn Féin strategist. He said the party had hovered close to 20% in the polls for years, so it would not be unreasonable to say it would at least double its 2011 showing of 9%. Sinn Féin could go from 14 seats to 30. It won 23, a shattering blow to hopes of advancement. In the general election, 544,140 people voted for Fine Gael, 519,356 voted for Fianna Fáil and 295,319 voted for Sinn Féin. The middle classes stayed away from Sinn Féin.
The section of the party that considers long-term strategy had hoped that Mary Lou would pull the party into the mainstream, occupy the moderate left and take over from Labour and push Fianna Fáil out of that space.
The general election saw some of that achieved. Young party activist Eoin Ó Broin was elected. He, like Mary Lou, is articulate, well turned out and witty. He is a mainstay of political talk shows. His girlfriend is MEP Lynn Boylan, also young and impressive. Together they seem the perfect Sinn Féin politicians for the future.
Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire took a seat in the hard-fought Cork South Central constituency of Micheál Martin and Simon Coveney. Thoughtful and courteous, he, too, is progressive. Another encouraging sort, Peadar Tóibín in Meath West, was re-elected, as was Pearse Doherty in Donegal.
In the Seanad, Rose ConwayWalsh, who narrowly missed out in Mayo, was the best speaker on the Seanad’s opening day. As these politicians advanced in Sinn Féin, for a time this appeared the way the party would go. Then came two major electoral mistakes. In advance of the 2014 Dublin South West by-election, Sinn Féin’s Cathal King was the favourite in a sprawling urban constituency.
But in the final days, AntiAusterity Alliance candidate Paul Murphy appeared to be doing well on the back of his anti-water charges campaign. Sinn Féin tried to fight him on that ground but its stance was unclear. Sinn Féin lost the by-election to a party that had out shouted it. Murphy was more radically anti-establishment.
APOLITICIAN who seemed to symbolise the party’s attempts to move towards the establishment, Pádraig Mac Lochlainn, had assumed he would stand in the last general election with Pearse Doherty in Donegal. Amiable Mac Lochlainn is popular across all parties. Then, arrogantly, Sinn Féin placed a third candidate, Gary Doherty, on the ticket. Sinn Féin split its vote and only Pearse Doherty was elected.
Sinn Féin had been rattled by the advance of the hard left. The water charges disputes and the 2014 by-election loss left the party split and in a state of flux. So while the ‘Mary Lou types’ emerged, a new batch of hard left, aggressive Sinn Féin politicians also emerged.
Louise O’Reilly is the daughter of Mick O’Reilly who once described himself as a ‘socialist, a trade unionist and a republican’. He was so militant that he was sacked by his union, the ATGWU. His daughter, Louise, elected to Dublin Fingal, shares his strident style. She was elected on the back of strong SF support in Balbriggan and Swords. Yet her bolshie attitude is hardly likely to comfort the yummy mummies of Malahide and Skerries, where she recently moved.
She is the kind of tough Sinn Féin TD that frightens the middle classes. Another, Cork TD Jonathan O’Brien, looks like a villain from a spaghetti western.
Many others of the old guard, like Aengus Ó Snodaigh and Seán Crowe, were re-elected. And then you have the convicted terrorists Martin Ferris and Dessie Ellis.
Sinn Féin stands at a crossroads, unable to fully sunder itself from the past and lacking forward momentum. It also lacks an opportunity to establish an identity in advance of Adams’s retirement. Now it’s a strange mishmash of former terrorists, hard leftists and young centrist trendies.
With a leader who offers no cogent leadership, the party is confusing voters.