Is Sinn Fein losing their grip?

Nodin wrote: »

What you "equate" in the privacy of your own head is your own business. However there's no proof whatsoever to your claims, and thus its best to keep them out of the public domain. What you refer to has been linked to dissident groups. If you have knowledge otherwise, give it to the Gardai and/or the PSNI.

I find it strange that in a thread where many - none of them friendly towards Sinn Fein - have remarked that the current trouble is none of their doing, you try to drag this nonsense into it.

The simple fact is that the IRA, of which Sinn Fein and Gerry Adams are so proud, committed an enormous number of crimes. Even by the Sutton Index ,which grossly underestimates the IRA’s crimes, it was responsible for 1709 deaths during the Troubles and that is to leave out crimes which are accepted by practically everyone to have been committed by the IRA such as Kingsmills.

Senior individuals within Sinn Fein have been repeatedly linked to criminality. Gerry Adams himself has been linked to La Mon and possibly most notoriously to the murder of Jean McConville. Adams’s denials have to be taken alongside his other denials. Whilst various politicians have tried to make their lives appear more interesting than they are (a category into which Adam’s claims to have sung “Always look on the bright side of life” in gaol should be put): his lies about being in gaol when Jean McConville was murdered paint a picture of an individual whose word is utterly worthless.

It is of course not only Adams who seems to have blood not only on his hands but to be saturated in the stuff: Operation Taurus against Martin McGuinness appeared to have evidence of several crimes for which he could have been prosecuted and in 2001 Ian Paisley named Martin McGuinness as the one who ordered Frank Hegarty’s murder.

In very few countries would politicians be expected to share power with a party led by people over whom such serious accusations hang. It might be possible to argue that these accusations are exactly that, only accusations: however, there are also multiple Sinn Fein MLAs who have been found guilty of serious crimes. Gerry Kelly is a released life sentence criminal, convicted in connection with the Old Bailey bombing which killed one person and injured 200. Paul Butler was convicted of murdering a police officer, Martina Anderson is a convicted bomber, Conor Murphy was convicted of explosives offences.

Sinn Fein of course do not accept the IRA’s actions as remotely criminal. In a time of peace Jean McConville’s kidnap, murder and burial would be a crime: in a time of war it would be a war crime. However, as recently as January 2005 Mitchell McLaughlin, the then Sinn Fein chairman, claimed that the murder of Jean McConville was not a crime: a position which Sinn Fein have yet to reverse.

However, even if these crimes are regarded as political there are plenty of other examples of an attitude to criminality which would make it difficult for Sinn Fein to be accepted as democratic politicians in any other society.

The position of Sinn Fein on the Northern Bank robbery is of course that the IRA did not do it and as such presumably if they are to be taken at their word (a laughable concept) then indeed it is irrelevant. Again though to pretend for a moment to take that seriously.

When the infamous Thomas Murphy was arrested over tax evasion, Adams stated: “Tom Murphy is not a criminal. He’s a good republican and I read his statement after the Manchester raids and I believe what he says and also and very importantly he is a key supporter of Sinn Féin’s peace strategy and has been for a very long time.”