‘THE IRA IS GONE’ – ADAMS

Posted by Jim on September 7, 2012

 Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams has condemned so-called ‘dissidents’ in  Dublin despite a rally in the city last weekend which saw several  hundred republicans of all hues unite to march in support of interned  political activist Marian Price.

 

 The march and rally, organised by the Free Marian Price Dublin  Committee, also attracted the support of socialists, trade unionists  and human rights advocates. Among those who took part in the rally were  a number of members of the Dublin parliament, including Independent TD  Thomas Pringle, who spoke at the rally, Sinn Fein’s Dessie Ellis and  Socialist TD Clare Daly.

 

 Marian Price, a former prisoner, was originally arrested for holding up  a piece of paper while a member of the breakaway ‘Real IRA’ read from  it at an Easter commemoration some 18 months ago. She has now fallen  seriously ill and is currently being held under armed guard in a  Belfast hospital.

 

 The ‘Real IRA’ organisation has since merged with other breakaway  groups, and is showing signs of increased activity after two small  explosive devices were found in Derry today [Friday].

 

 While Sinn Fein has supported Price’s release as a human and civil  rights issue, it has repeated its opposition to the ‘new IRA’. Earlier  this month, a military funeral was organised in Dublin for Alan Ryan,  who was a senior member.  Masked men fired shots over the coffin.

 

 A Garda crackdown against republicans in Dublin since that funeral,  which was attended by over a thousand people, has led to charges  against Ryan’s brother and two others for IRA membership.

 

 Mr Adams made it clear this week that the [Provisional] IRA  has gone for good.  But he dismissed the remaining armed republican  groups as “mavericks”.

 

 “The IRA is gone,” he said on Tuesday. “We should not confuse those  little maverick groups who paraded around this city recently. We should  not confuse them with the IRA.

 

 “At the time there was war, the IRA fought the war. The war was over.

 The IRA took that opportunity for peace.”

 

 The Louth TD was speaking just hours before a special debate in  Stormont, where the DUP put forward a motion which called on the Dublin  government to apologise for the emergence of the IRA in the 1970s.

 

 DUP leader Mr Robinson has insisted in recent weeks that there was a  “clear connection” between the 26-County government and the Official  IRA, which ended its armed struggle in 1972, and the Provisional IRA,  which declared a ceasefire in 1994.

 

 Robinson said: “I think the Irish Republic would do well to look at its  role and recognise that it was not the way it should have behaved in  those days, and apologise for it because massive death and destruction  followed.”

 

 The motion has baffled nationalists, but it was nevertheless passed by  the unionist-dominated Assembly in Belfast by a single vote, 47 to 46,  despite the opposition of Sinn Fein and the SDLP.

 

 Mr Adams insisted there was no connection between the government in  Dublin and the IRA.  He pointed to the history of repression and  violence which republicans in the 26 Counties have long endured at the  hands of the police, including the torture techniques practised by the  Garda ‘heavy gang’.

 

 “The IRA is not the creation of any Dublin government,” said Mr Adams.

 

 “Whatever the Irish Government may have to apologise for — whether it’s  the heavy gang, whether it’s the brutality of prisoners in Portlaoise,  whether it’s the failure of successive governments attacking the British  in the Dublin-Monaghan bombings and other collusion – I don’t think it  has any apologies to make.”