Gerry Adams : Knife through Butter ?

Wolfe Tone

He also spent a lot of time talking about the present and the future.

M three

As usual with any thread that has anything to do with SF it goes astray.
Every time i go to boards.ie theres a thread or 3 criticising SF. You would nearly think there was a strategy to all this nit picking. Perhaps some sections dont like the rise of SF but they have been given an increased mandate by the electorate, which is more than some parties can say.

This one happens to be about gerry adams voice. Its not that long ago his voice was totally censored on tv. this kind of anti SF thread is more of the same kind of nonsense.

FFS, is the sound of gerry adams voice all some people have to worry about............

phantom_lord

The Scientician wrote: »

It's not his accent, his command of the Irish language is cat.

The ironing is delicious.

M three

P. Breathnach wrote: »

I did think that some of what Gerry Adams said during the campaign cost them votes.

I used the verb "suspect"; that is not the same as "know".

Pure Tripe. Sinn Fein gained a huge number of votes in the last election

As for "suspecting" what will happen sinn feins vote in the future, i would suspect that you have absolutely no idea what will happen

nesf

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

I thought that was a good speech.

A very good speech if you support SF (i.e. he hit on all the important republican touchstones). Very uninteresting if you're not an ardent republican, i.e. to me who is very neutral about the whole republican/nationalist issue it's a rather boring speech really. Then I'm definitely not the target audience for it, so eh.

K-9

M three wrote: »

Pure Tripe. Sinn Fein gained a huge number of votes in the last election

As for "suspecting" what will happen sinn feins vote in the future, i would suspect that you have absolutely no idea what will happen

They got 220,000 votes, to put in perspective FF got 167,000 more and Labour double.

Cakes.

bitter wrote: »

you gotta wonder about those two?

My Mam thought she was his wife on the news last night. :pac:

I would prefer somebody to speak bad Irish rather than no Irish.

P. Breathnach

M three wrote: »

Pure Tripe. Sinn Fein gained a huge number of votes in the last election

You have no idea how they might have done had Adams kept his mouth shut.

As for "suspecting" what will happen sinn feins vote in the future, i would suspect that you have absolutely no idea what will happen

Why don't you just leave it? I stated an opinion, clearly flagged as an opinion. Time, and not your attacks on what I say, will tell us if I am right or wrong.

caseyann

I think he has a great voice.My mother would listen to him all day if she could.She enjoys his voice.:D

gigino

caseyann wrote: »

Gerry is a great man and decent person,anyone who knows him will say the same and anyone who gives him the time of day will tell you how intelligent he is.

decent person...hmnnn...maybe the relatives of Jean McColville, or the relatives of the innocent people killed or injured by ira bombs on bloody Friday in Belfast, would beg to differ with you.

Still, on a positive note at least he now committed to peaceful means + he is an intelligent man. There were however many other intelligent men who cannot speak today because they were victims of the group to whom Adams supported.

KeithAFC wrote: »

Jesus, he spent like 5 minutes at the start of that speech talking about the past. Talking about Mairead farrell, Wolfe Tone, Bobby Sands etc.

you hardly expected him to talk about the many victims of republican violence, or the people who resisted it for decades ?

M three

P. Breathnach wrote: »

I did think that some of what Gerry Adams said during the campaign cost them votes.



I used the verb "suspect"; that is not the same as "know".

[I thought this thread was about Gerry Adams. Why do people want to discuss me?]

P. Breathnach wrote: »

You have no idea how they might have done had Adams kept his mouth shut.



Why don't you just leave it? I stated an opinion, clearly flagged as an opinion. Time, and not your attacks on what I say, will tell us if I am right or wrong.

Oh woe is you. I attacked what you said, really?

Making statements, opinions whatever you want to call it that you can hide behind for years. Very non committal imo.

This thread has gone way off topic so I'll leave you to ramble away.

P. Breathnach

nesf wrote: »

A very good speech if you support SF (i.e. he hit on all the important republican touchstones)....

That's the nub of it: he plays to his existing fan-base and makes them orgasmically happy; in doing so, he fails to broaden the appeal of the party.

In some ways, that is a good thing. He actually tells us what he values, and if we do not share those values we can choose not to vote for his party. I have a suspicion that many other Sinn Féin politicians have much the same values as Gerry Adams, but do not state them so forthrightly because they recognise that they might alienate potential voters.

jimmycrackcorm

M three wrote: »

Every time i go to boards.ie theres a thread or 3 criticising SF. You would nearly think there was a strategy to all this nit picking. Perhaps some sections dont like the rise of SF but they have been given an increased mandate by the electorate, which is more than some parties can say.

This one happens to be about gerry adams voice. Its not that long ago his voice was totally censored on tv. this kind of anti SF thread is more of the same kind of nonsense.

But it's fairly clear their mandate is solely a response of public anger about the economic issues. It's not as though they trebled their vote because a lot of people suddenly decided they were going to become republican overnight and yet Gerry decides to rattle on and on about the "republic".

It is grating and as long as SF continue to peddle the claptrap about taking the fight to our new big bad oppressor, the EU, then they'll continue to be ridiculed on public forums.

In fairness to Gerry though, he's not near half as grating as Michale Healy Rae...

celtictiger32

P. Breathnach wrote: »

That's the nub of it: he plays to his existing fan-base and makes them orgasmically happy; in doing so, he fails to broaden the appeal of the party.

2007- 4 seats and 6.9%
2011- 14 seats and 9.9%

and he fails to broaden the appeal of the party:rolleyes:

K-9

celtictiger32 wrote: »

2007- 4 seats and 6.9%
2011- 14 seats and 9.9%

and he fails to broaden the appeal of the party:rolleyes:

Labour had similar support in 07 and got 20 seats.

SF just don't attract transfers, which ties in with what people are saying on this thread.

PR gives you a boost at about 8/9%.

celtictiger32

K-9 wrote: »

celtictiger32 wrote: »

Labour had similar support in 07 and got 20 seats.

SF just don't attract transfers, which ties in with what people are saying on this thread.

PR gives you a boost at about 8/9%.

were not talking about labour we're talking about sinn fein and gerry adams, gerry came down into a new constituency and got elected first time, sinn fein more than trebled the seats they won at the last election, and a lot of candidates werent too far away either. and the op is talking about failing to broaden the party.

junder

celtictiger32 wrote: »

K-9 wrote: »

were not talking about labour we're talking about sinn fein and gerry adams, gerry came down into a new constituency and got elected first time, sinn fein more than trebled the seats they won at the last election, and a lot of candidates werent too far away either. and the op is talking about failing to broaden the party.

In a economic crisis were there has been a total collapse in support for FF seems it would have been a good oppunity fir sinn fein to make real head way, instead they get only 14 seats, not even enough to be a creadable opposition party. Most of the new votes sinn fein got were most likely protest votes which will disappear if the republic moves out if recession. So when all said and done sinn fein did pretty poor.

phantom_lord

celtictiger32 wrote: »

were not talking about labour we're talking about sinn fein and gerry adams, gerry came down into a new constituency and got elected first time, sinn fein more than trebled the seats they won at the last election, and a lot of candidates werent too far away either. and the op is talking about failing to broaden the party.

None of this had anything to do with Gerry Adams.

Bottle_of_Smoke

Its hard to say if it was a good result or not for them.

Given there was a recent capitalism crisis you would think themselves and Labour should have done a lot better.

So whilst you can't argue with numbers - they did almost triple the previous numbers, they still have less than 10% of the seats in the dail

I personally think their increase mostly came because they were the only major party saying "burn the bondholders". Pearse Doherty arriving on the scene when he did also gave them a boost.

Had they a different leader . . . again impossible to call. People generally either loathe Adams and don't trust him or else think he's very intelligent. So whilst he certainly put some people off voting for them he probably got them a lot of votes too. I'd say there's an element who liked the idea of him being in the dail for almost entertainment purposes(yes this kind of voter does exist)

The Scientician

phantom_lord wrote: »

The ironing is delicious.

Your irony detector is broken.

Carrickbhoy

Scaldy Ned wrote: »

I respect Gerry and think he did some great work on the peace process, i also think he deserves to be congratulated for getting elected to the Dail....But on a basic human level, he grates on me or cuts through me like a knife through butter. I now find i have to switch off because my ears reject his voice.
Especially when he speaks Irish....now i'll readily admit i don't have much of the gaeilge but Gerrry speaks it like he only learned yesterday and each word is laboured to death.
Don't know about you but if Gerry speaks too much in The Dail i think it won't do the Shinners any favours...Opinions ?

Is fearr Gaeilge bhriste ná Béarla clisté

A_Border_Bandit

The Scientician wrote: »

It's not his accent, his command of the Irish language is cat.

Án cát. Tá tú an noób mo chara.

Disappointed, I thought there was a hilarious video being linked of Gerry at breakfast or something

celtictiger32

phantom_lord wrote: »

None of this had anything to do with Gerry Adams.

none of a parties success is any thing to do with the party leader?????????

phantom_lord

celtictiger32 wrote: »

none of a parties success is any thing to do with the party leader?????????

You seem to be attributing the increase in SF seats to Gerry Adams when it was mostly just an anti-FF backlash.

FTA69

Liam Mc Keogh wrote: »

All of the political activists in the North learned and speak perfect Irish. Gerry Adams is no exception.

Balls. Gerry Adams learned his Irish in jail after he was interned by the Brits, his command of it isn't fantastic but it's certainly better than nothing and fair play to him for using it when he can. As for your assertion that all Republican activists in the north (or south) speak perfect Irish, that's just plain and utter nonsense. There's a good few Irish language types in Sinn Féin, but the vast majority of Republicans (me among them) can't string two words of the language together.

Wolfe Tone

phantom_lord wrote: »

You seem to be attributing the increase in SF seats to Gerry Adams when it was mostly just an anti-FF backlash.

Do you credit Enda Kenny or is that just backlash too?

phantom_lord

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

Do you credit Enda Kenny or is that just backlash too?

Enda deserves credit for rebuilding the party after the 2002 disaster but FG were always going to walk this election.

FG may well have gained a majority if he hadn't lead during this campaign though, same goes for SF, they might would have done better if they had been led by someone like Pearse Doherty, and particularly for the long term.

Pointing out the gains from 2007 and attributing it to Adams broadening the appeal of the party is pretty silly though.

Wolfe Tone

phantom_lord wrote: »

Enda deserves credit for rebuilding the party after the 2002 disaster but FG were always going to walk this election.

FG may well have gained a majority if he hadn't lead during this campaign though, same goes for SF, they might would have done better if they had been led by someone like Pearse Doherty, and particularly for the long term.

Pointing out the gains from 2007 and attributing it to Adams broadening the appeal of the party is pretty silly though.

Does Gerry Adams not deserve credit for building up the SF party right across this island to what it is today?

phantom_lord

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

Does Gerry Adams not deserve credit for building up the SF party right across this island to what it is today?

Perhaps, but he's an electoral liability nowadays, the tv debate 2007 was pretty damaging, and he's had a number of gaffes this time around and it's not like he gained an extra seat for the party in the election.

Wolfe Tone

phantom_lord wrote: »

Perhaps, but he's an electoral liability nowadays, the tv debate 2007 was pretty damaging, and he's had a number of gaffes this time around and it's not like he gained an extra seat for the party in the election.

There is no perhaps about it, he masterminded SF becoming the largest party in the north and them near tripling their seats in the Dáil, as well as personally topping the poll.