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What evidence of Gerry Adams' IRA membership do people need?

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13567…43

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    #62
    Seaneh
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 18,300 ✭✭✭✭Seaneh


    alastair wrote: »
    I posted the details of the specific IRA members in the colour party - that's more than enough back-up.

    That's enough to prove that certain members of a certain colour party were also members of the IRA. It proves nothing else, no matter how many times you repeat the claim.


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    #63
    alastair
    Registered Users Posts: 19,307 ✭✭✭✭alastair


    Seaneh wrote: »
    That's enough to prove that certain members of a certain colour party were also members of the IRA. It proves nothing else, no matter how many times you repeat the claim.

    You keep ignoring the reality that there's ample additional evidence to indicate that Adams was simply another IRA man in that colour party - you keep repeating the straw man claim that all colour party members are determined to be IRA members solely by participation in a colour party, when it's been pointed out that it 's just an indication (or, as far as I'm concerned - a choice of idiots or the culpable).
    My Minister of State, Paul Channon, and I met leaders of the Provisional IRA at his house in London on 7 July.
    Willy Whitelaw
    Memoirs of a Revolutionary, Sean Mac Stiofáin:

    The time now came to pick our team of representatives for the crucial London meeting with Whitelaw. At this stage, it was the military situation that would be the main British preoccupation, and they would scarcely be interested in talking to any Republicans just yet apart from representatives of the military wing. Therefore I rejected a suggestion that our team should include a leading member of Sinn Fein.

    It was decided that Dave O’Connell and I would represent the national leadership, together with Séamus Twomey. Also from Belfast there would be Gerry Adams and Ivor Bell. Martin McGuinness was to represent Derry.


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    #64
    Seaneh
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 18,300 ✭✭✭✭Seaneh


    Again, calling other people idiots for taking part in a colour party at a funeral because of negative connotations you have towards these actions and your inability separate from this the reality of what a colour party actually is, because of your imagined connection between taking part in a colour party and admission of membership of an illegal organisation.

    Like I said before, there comes a time when your inability to comprehend English stops being my problem.


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    #65
    alastair
    Registered Users Posts: 19,307 ✭✭✭✭alastair


    Seaneh wrote: »
    Like I said before, there comes a time when your inability to comprehend English stops being my problem.

    I think you'll find the comprehension deficit is at your end. Nobody in this thread said participation in a colour party was an admission of membership of the IRA.


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    #66
    Seaneh
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 18,300 ✭✭✭✭Seaneh


    alastair wrote: »
    I think you'll find the comprehension deficit is at your end. Nobody in this thread said participation in a colour party was an admission of membership of the IRA.

    You've implied precisely that in the case of the former Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead.


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    #67
    alastair
    Registered Users Posts: 19,307 ✭✭✭✭alastair


    Seaneh wrote: »
    You've implied precisely that in the case of the former Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead.

    Yes - because there's ample, discrete, and supporting evidence from multiple sources.


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    #68
    Seaneh
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 18,300 ✭✭✭✭Seaneh


    alastair wrote: »
    Yes - because there's ample, discrete, and supporting evidence from multiple sources.

    Then use THAT evidence and stop pretending that being involved in a colour party at a funeral is any sort of evidence of membership of an illegal organisation, even in the case of young Gearóid Mac Ádhaimh.

    Kthxbai.

    I'm going to sleep now, I've finished my assignment, I expect I'll sleep late so don't bother waiting for a reply any time soon.


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    #69
    alastair
    Registered Users Posts: 19,307 ✭✭✭✭alastair


    Seaneh wrote: »
    Then use THAT evidence and stop pretending that being involved in a colour party at a funeral is any sort of evidence of membership of an illegal organisation, even in the case of young Gearóid Mac Ádhaimh.

    Kthxbai.

    I'm going to sleep now, I've finished my assignment, I expect I'll sleep late so don't bother waiting for a reply any time soon.

    The photo is part of the evidence against him - the others in the colour party are IRA men, it's the funeral of an IRA man, and there's additional evidence of his membership. Sorry that you don't like the facts.


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    #70
    alastair
    Registered Users Posts: 19,307 ✭✭✭✭alastair


    Article under Adams' pseudonym in An Phoblacht, 1976:
    "Rightly or wrongly, I am an IRA volunteer and, rightly or wrongly, I take a course of action as a means to bringing about a situation in which I believe the people of my country will prosper. The course I take involves the use of physical force, but only if I achieve the situation where my people can genuinely prosper can my course of action be seen, by me, to have been justified . . . I cannot complain if I am hurt, if I am killed or if I am imprisoned. I must consider these things as possible and probable eventualities . . . I have no one to blame but myself."
    'Brownie'

    Attribution of 'Brownie'
    Later in the year, and until his release in 1977, Gerry Adams, then an internee in Long Kesh, began to contribute a regular column to the paper under the by-line ‘Brownie’. And, in 1978, following his imprisonment in the H-Blocks at Long Kesh, the late Bobby Sands, using the pen-name ‘Marcella’, became a contributor to the paper, describing in detail the appalling conditions in the H-Blocks.
    An Phoblacht - About us

    Description of 'Brownie':
    “For those of you who don’t know, Brownie is a lanky, thin bearded, boggin’ excuse for a person with gold rimmed glasses and is oft times to be seen, pipe in mouth, fumbling over cheese sandwiches…
    'Solon', An Phoblacht - 1977


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    #71
    relaxed
    Closed Accounts Posts: 572 ✭✭✭relaxed


    alastair wrote: »
    The photo is part of the evidence against him.

    It's not evidence at all. It's the same as saying if a fella is wearing a Liverpool shirt he must be from Liverpool.


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    #72
    alastair
    Registered Users Posts: 19,307 ✭✭✭✭alastair


    relaxed wrote: »
    It's not evidence at all. It's the same as saying if a fella is wearing a Liverpool shirt he must be from Liverpool.

    Not quite. It's like saying if a guy runs out of the tunnel with the rest of the Liverpool team, he's wearing the same strip, and a number of people on the same team tell you he's actually a player - it's a bunch of evidence of his being a player alright.


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    #73
    professore
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,857 ✭✭✭professore


    Let's ask the question another way : what proof is there that Adams was NOT in the IRA? Or to put it another way - prove Martin Mc Guinness was in the IRA. It's a stupid pointless discussion. They were both heavily involved.

    It's a secret organisation so you're unlikely to find a members list!


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    #74
    BillyBoy13
    Closed Accounts Posts: 296 ✭✭BillyBoy13


    professore wrote: »
    Let's ask the question another way : what proof is there that Adams was NOT in the IRA?

    That's not an easy thing to do. If I ask you to prove to me, beyond all reasonable doubt that you are not currently a member, or ever were a member of an any IRA styled organisation how would you do it.

    Just think about that for a second- what could you say or do that could prove that to me.

    Then in Gerry Adams case you throw in a bunch of people (who hate his guts and would love to see him burn) and they counter claim his innocence.

    Its far easier to prove he was in it then vice versa.

    I wonder, did "steakknife" or Donaldson or any of those lads ever name Adams as a member/army council?


    (For what its worth I believe he more than likely was a member- actually Id be genuinely shocked if he wasn't. But at the same time I like to look at this objectively)


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    #75
    relaxed
    Closed Accounts Posts: 572 ✭✭✭relaxed


    alastair wrote: »
    Not quite. It's like saying if a guy runs out of the tunnel with the rest of the Liverpool team, he's wearing the same strip, and a number of people on the same team tell you he's actually a player - it's a bunch of evidence of his being a player alright.

    Totally different, in that case he would have a signed contract = evidence

    Being photographed with 2 provo's is not evidence he was a Provo, which is what you are claiming it to be.


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    #76
    alastair
    Registered Users Posts: 19,307 ✭✭✭✭alastair


    relaxed wrote: »
    Totally different, in that case he would have a signed contract = evidence
    A contract that he's not prepared to show you, and which the team's management won't share publically?
    relaxed wrote: »
    Being photographed with 2 provo's is not evidence he was a Provo, which is what you are claiming it to be.
    I'm claiming it's part of the evidence. And he's not just 'being photographed with 2 Provos' - there's thousands of photos of him in those circumstances. This is a photo of him in a paramilitary uniform, with identically dressed men we know to have been IRA members. Alongside the stack of other evidence of his membership.


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    #77
    MakeEmLaugh
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,356 ✭✭✭MakeEmLaugh


    MakeEmLaugh wrote: »
    I find it exhaustingly repetitive, whenever anyone mentions the fact of Gerry Adams' membership of the IRA, that many people are quick to jump in and say something along the lines of "If you have any evidence of Gerry Adams' membership of the IRA, I'd like to hear it".

    Exactly what more evidence do these people need?

    Perhaps someone could suggest what magical, hitherto-unseen evidence we need to prove Adams was in the IRA?
    maccored wrote: »
    I dont need to tell you what proof is required.

    The whole point of this thread is for people who claim the existing evidence isn't enough to indicate what would be needed to prove Adams' IRA membership.

    You don't need to tell me, but if you don't at least do that, anything else you post is spam.
    maccored wrote: »
    Whats next, arresting every author who wrote a crimes story?

    That is a laughably poor analogy.
    maccored wrote: »
    The IRA didnt have a 'uniform'.

    tumblr_m6yce2rDRa1raei82o1_500.gif


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    #78
    relaxed
    Closed Accounts Posts: 572 ✭✭✭relaxed


    alastair wrote: »
    A contract that he's not prepared to show you, and which the team's management won't share publically?


    I'm claiming it's part of the evidence. And he's not just 'being photographed with 2 Provos' - there's thousands of photos of him in those circumstances. This is a photo of him in a paramilitary uniform, with identically dressed men we know to have been IRA members. Alongside the stack of other evidence of his membership.


    No need to show anybody his contract, to play for Liverpool you must sign a contract, so we know it exists.

    If you have a copy of Adams contract lets be having it, now that would be evidence.

    Of course Adams was up to his neck with the provo's, we all know that, but dd he ever go around planting bombs, kneecapping people and shooting at soldiers.

    That's what I am actually curious about, did he see active service or not?


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    #79
    alastair
    Registered Users Posts: 19,307 ✭✭✭✭alastair


    relaxed wrote: »
    No need to show anybody his contract, to play for Liverpool you must sign a contract, so we know it exists.

    If you have a copy of Adams contract lets be having it, now that would be evidence.
    There isn't an application form or membership card for the Provos.
    relaxed wrote: »
    Of course Adams was up to his neck with the provo's, we all know that, but dd he ever go around planting bombs, kneecapping people and shooting at soldiers.

    That's what I am actually curious about, did he see active service or not?
    The allegation is that he was Belfast Brigade Commander, so responsible for all sorts of 'active service', even if he didn't personally participate. The only instance of him having been seen in personal 'active service' that I'm aware of was a fairly derisory claim of him firing a rifle at B Specials early on, and being more than a bit hampered by the milk bottle lenses in his specs. But who knows?


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    #80
    BillyBoy13
    Closed Accounts Posts: 296 ✭✭BillyBoy13


    alastair wrote: »
    This is a photo of him in a paramilitary uniform, with identically dressed men we know to have been IRA members. Alongside the stack of other evidence of his membership.

    Thats the bit I'm interested in. What stack of evidence?


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    #81
    Phoebas
    Registered Users Posts: 9,370 ✭✭✭Phoebas


    BillyBoy13 wrote: »
    Thats the bit I'm interested in. What stack of evidence?

    You could start with the OP.


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    #82
    BillyBoy13
    Closed Accounts Posts: 296 ✭✭BillyBoy13


    Phoebas wrote: »
    You could start with the OP.

    Well as I said on that page most of that "evidence" is very wishy washy.

    The only thing for me in the OP's list that holds any weight is the picture.


    I just want to compile a list of known evidence (and if alastair has a stack of it then Im all ears) and then come to my conclusions.


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    #83
    alastair
    Registered Users Posts: 19,307 ✭✭✭✭alastair


    BillyBoy13 wrote: »
    Well as I said on that page most of that "evidence" is very wishy washy.

    The only thing for me in the OP's list that holds any weight is the picture.


    I just want to compile a list of known evidence (and if alastair has a stack of it then Im all ears) and then come to my conclusions.

    You have read the thread, yes?

    Adams claimed to be a 'volunteer' in '76 - through his nom-de-plume. The identity of his pseudonym was clear, both by description, by the record of APRN, and by the family events referenced by 'Brownie'.

    And both Willy Whitelaw and Seán Mac Stíofáin are in agreement that the IRA delegation which were sent to London in '72 comprised IRA members, and not SF delegates. Adams doesn't dispute he was a member of this delegation.

    Aside from that, you've the various IRA people who state he was indeed a member - and no-one would have been better placed to confirm.


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    #84
    BillyBoy13
    Closed Accounts Posts: 296 ✭✭BillyBoy13


    alastair wrote: »
    You have read the thread, yes?

    Not all of it- as there's a lot of bickering going on. And now might be a good time to add that a lot of this stuff is new on me. I don't usually pay much attention to IRA/SF politics/history so cut me some slack if I'm not up to speed on certain issues.
    alastair wrote: »
    Adams claimed to be a 'volunteer' in '76 - through his nom-de-plume. The identity of his pseudonym was clear, both by description, by the record of APRN, and by the family events referenced by 'Brownie'.

    OK simple question. Was Brownie used exclusively by Adams or is Tramps Like Us wrong when he said it was used by multiple people?
    alastair wrote: »
    And both Willy Whitelaw and Seán Mac Stíofáin are in agreement that the IRA delegation which were sent to London in '72 comprised IRA members, and not SF delegates. Adams doesn't dispute he was a member of this delegation.

    Again, going back to Tramps Like Us- he said that Mac Stiofain said in his book non-military people were at those talks. Was that a reference to GA?
    alastair wrote: »
    Aside from that, you've the various IRA people who state he was indeed a member - and no-one would have been better placed to confirm.

    As I mentioned, Im not up to speed on this stuff. But it seems to me that most of the people naming him have an axe to grind.

    Thats why I asked about other informers such as Donaldson and "steak knife" who (to me anyway) would be more neutral on the subject.


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    #85
    alastair
    Registered Users Posts: 19,307 ✭✭✭✭alastair


    BillyBoy13 wrote: »
    OK simple question. Was Brownie used exclusively by Adams or is Tramps Like Us wrong when he said it was used by multiple people?
    SF claimed, after the fact, that it was used by a number of writers, but that's not what they said at the time, and it's not a claim supported by the substance of the writing, nor the account of those we were interned with 'Brownie'.
    Questioned by one of the authors about these written confirmations of involvement in violence, Gerry Adams subsequently maintained that the Brownie articles were not written solely by him but were the work of a number of prisoners. Asked if he therefore wrote the articles which contained no damaging admissions, but not those which did, he replied yes. The exchange provoked a degree of wry amusement among republicans present at the time. The Brownie articles are clearly the work of an individual rather than a committee, and when Brendan McFarlane, the IRA’s officer commanding inside the Maze jail, wrote smuggled messages or ‘comms’ to Gerry Adams during the hunger strike of 1981 he consistently referred to Adams as ‘Brownie’.

    In February 1977 Brownie announced to his readers that his column was shortly going to come to an end as his release was imminent. Brownie said that he was looking forward to seeing his wife and son who had been born while he was in jail. ‘Hopefully by the time you get to reading this I will be wandering in some secluded spot, hand in hand with mine spouse and our young son who arrived as soon as I left and is thus about to see me in my first patriarchal role going out into freedom…’ …One can safely assume that in this instance Brownie and Gerry Adams were one and the same person as Colette had given birth to the couple’s only song Gearoid a short time after Gerry Adams’ arrest in 1973.
    Man of War, Man of Peace. David Sharrock and Mark Devenport

    BillyBoy13 wrote: »
    Again, going back to Tramps Like Us- he said that Mac Stiofain said in his book non-military people were at those talks. Was that a reference to GA?

    Mac Stiofáin said that there was a decision to make it a purely IRA delegation - though there was a lawyer with them too:
    The most substantial contact occurred in July, 1972, when there was a dramatic meeting in London between William Whitelaw and a top-level I.R.A. delegation comprising Sean MacStiofain, Daithi O’Connell, Seamus Twomey (then O.C. of the Belfast battalion), Martin McGuinness (then O.C. of the Derry battalion), and Ivor Bell and Gerry Adams, the senior officers in the Belfast command structure. A Dublin lawyer, Myles Shevlin, acted as secretary to the I.R.A. delegation.
    Tim Pat Coogan

    BillyBoy13 wrote: »
    As I mentioned, Im not up to speed on this stuff. But it seems to me that most of the people naming him have an axe to grind.

    Thats why I asked about other informers such as Donaldson and "steak knife" who (to me anyway) would be more neutral on the subject.
    Freddie Scappaticci was more focused on McGuinness as the main IRA decision-maker in the Army Council in the 80's and 90's, with Adams as more involved in the political side, but he placed him at Council meetings. He was clear that McGuinness was much more of a 'hawk' at that stage. Scappaticci didn't offer up any info on who ran what in the 70's to those he spoke to in the press.


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    #86
    relaxed
    Closed Accounts Posts: 572 ✭✭✭relaxed


    alastair wrote: »
    You have read the thread, yes?

    Adams claimed to be a 'volunteer' in '76 - through his nom-de-plume. The identity of his pseudonym was clear, both by description, by the record of APRN, and by the family events referenced by 'Brownie'.

    And both Willy Whitelaw and Seán Mac Stíofáin are in agreement that the IRA delegation which were sent to London in '72 comprised IRA members, and not SF delegates. Adams doesn't dispute he was a member of this delegation.

    Aside from that, you've the various IRA people who state he was indeed a member - and no-one would have been better placed to confirm.


    So your stack of evidence consists of a few photo's of Adams with known provo's, recollections of a meeting in London in the seventies and an anonymous newspaper article?


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    #87
    alastair
    Registered Users Posts: 19,307 ✭✭✭✭alastair


    relaxed wrote: »
    So your stack of evidence consists of a few photo's of Adams with known provo's, recollections of a meeting in London in the seventies and an anonymous newspaper article?

    Adams in uniform with known IRA men, the evidence of other IRA men of the time, the designation of Adams as an IRA delegate in '73, and the attribution of an article (claiming he was an IRA man) to him personally by the publishers of said articles. Aside from that we've only got the word of our government, the UK government, oh, and the US government's confidence that those two governments were quite clear about his membership. Asides from that, not a lot, other than a moderate critical analysis capacity.


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    #88
    Phoebas
    Registered Users Posts: 9,370 ✭✭✭Phoebas


    alastair wrote: »
    Adams in uniform with known IRA men, the evidence of other IRA men of the time, the designation of Adams as an IRA delegate in '73, and the attribution of an article (claiming he was an IRA man) to him personally by the publishers of said articles. Aside from that we've only got the word of our government, the UK government, oh, and the US government's confidence that those two governments were quite clear about his membership. Asides from that, not a lot, other than a moderate critical analysis capacity.

    But apart from all of the evidence, do you have any evidence?


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    #89
    alastair
    Registered Users Posts: 19,307 ✭✭✭✭alastair


    Phoebas wrote: »
    But apart from all of the evidence, do you have any evidence?

    There's the beard.


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    #90
    dashcamdanny
    Registered Users Posts: 1,920 ✭✭✭dashcamdanny


    alastair wrote: »
    There's the beard.

    He does have a fantastic beard.


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    #91
    Scofflaw
    Registered Users Posts: 23,283 ✭✭✭✭Scofflaw


    Seaneh wrote: »
    Again, calling other people idiots for taking part in a colour party at a funeral because of negative connotations you have towards these actions and your inability separate from this the reality of what a colour party actually is, because of your imagined connection between taking part in a colour party and admission of membership of an illegal organisation.

    Like I said before, there comes a time when your inability to comprehend English stops being my problem.

    And there comes a time when your inability to use English politely has to stop being everyone's problem.

    2 week ban.

    moderately,
    Scofflaw


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