Is/was Gerry Adams and the IRA considered terrorists?

[chelsea0011]

I noticed that Gerry Adams was at the St. Patrick's Breakfast in Boston yesterday. For people who don't know, this is an annual blow-fest where pols make fun of themselves and their policies. But I have always been under the belief that the IRA under Gerry Adams was responsible for killing innocent people. Am I wrong about this?

[ProgressiveProfessor]

1. He was part of Sinn Féin, the political wing of the IRA and was never tied to Provo violence

[vadawg]

3. rofl, thats like saying that adolf hitler was the political leader of the nazis

but he never pulled the trigger, the dude is as much a part of the PIRA as any other brigade commander could be...

[ProgressiveProfessor]

5. While I agree with you, that may be the technicality that kept him off the various lists

[vadawg]

6. yup, plus the irish americans had a lot of pull in the states so he was never persona non grata

but its pretty well known in ulster that the brigades take their orders from adams and mcguiness etc, they are the pretty face so to speak, hes always been considered a terrorist in the UK.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

8. I imagine it would be impolite to mention prominent political figures from MA and NY....

One of my daughters recently discovered we had relatives on both sides of Bloody Sunday. Imagine its about the same for any of use with Scotch Irish ancestry.

While I normally like plebiscites etc, Northern Ireland has made be wonder over the years about how good a tool they really are at achieving political stability and peace. Falklands, Georgia, West Bank, and others places come to mind as well.

[vadawg]

9. nah the majority in ulster see themselves as part of the UK, same as the falklands

you cant really walk away from them and abandon them just because it might be politically expedient, ive never understood teh US thing with the PIRA, kinda like the UK supporting Al Queda.. :shrug:

[ProgressiveProfessor]

10. I agree the majority do, but it sure took a long time for peace. I doubted I would see it in

my lifetime.

[Tailormyst]

14. There was nastiness from both sides.

The Brit leaders were not exactly innocent in all this, they treated Ireland very badly. Had England won our own revolutionary war, our own founding fathers would have been terrorists. I'm not excusing bad behavior, but people need to look at the whole picture and realize that not everything is black and white.

[Vinnie From Indy]

16. Amen!

It should be pointed out that the UK committed GENOCIDE in Ireland in the past. The treatment of the Irish by England throughout history is filled with blood, misery and sorrow. In fact, it could be offered that for every Brit killed by the IRA, there were twenty, thirty or more Irish killed.

Terrorist is a label attached by the powerful to the weak throughout history.

[mr blur]

2. He was a terrorist. He has blood on his hands.

Whatever he calls himself. He should be in jail.

[gleaner]

4. Rumor tied Sein Fein to terrorist acts....

and weapons purchases, but I don't know that anyone ever produced any hard proof. The IRA itself was a terrorist group. They thought of themselves as a liberating army for oppressed people and in the 60s they were responsible for bombings in England which killed civilians in public and for at least one bombing that destroyed a school bus. Bear with me, because this is from memory when I was younger and the facts are a bit hazy. You could Google the IRA and Gerry Adams and see what exactly was happening.

The IRA used to come here and quite openly solicit money for arms for their cause. I don't know why people gave it to them. Maybe they thought it was romantic or something. I think the crux of their battle with England is religious, and they thought (and maybe still do) that they were living in an "occupied" country. But really a terrorist is a terrorist and there is nothing romantic or heroic about blowing up innocent people.

[vadawg]

7. yup i remember on 911 i spoke to someone who quite openly stated well i guess turnaround is fair

talking about how for years New Yorkers had been giving money to the cause so that people in Ulster and The RUC and UDR would be subject to car bombs etc, he had a point...

[gleaner]

17. I'm sorry, but I don't think the people who died ..

in the World Trade Center or their families deserved what happened to them in any way shape or form. People who contributed to the IRA knew what they were buying into, but no one deserves to be blown up. There were laws against doing what they did and since it was quite out in the open they should have been prosecuted. Another thought that comes to my mind is that our governments at the time certainly knew who the IRA people were and why they were here, but they let them come into the country anyway. It could have been stopped by immigration refusing to let them in the way they did other criminals and terrorists. It was no where near as tight as it is now, but still they could have stopped them. They had the legal mechanisms.

I hear your sentiment and I feel for the people in Ulster and London and also in Belfast where they were killed and hunted by the English. I just don't think that innocents or anyone else deserves to die for something they had no part in. The onus is on the IRA and the individuals who actually gave them money. I remember that somewhere around 9/11 the IRA said that they would not engage in terrorism anymore because of what had happened here, and Ireland as a country was very sympathetic to us. I think they have kept their word, but I could be wrong. I frequently am.;)

[mwooldri]

11. Gerry Adams was definitely seen as a terrorist in UK eyes.

There was an Act of Parliament I believe that forbade certain people from speaking on radio/tv. Media got around this quickly by having "actors" state his words instead. This was obviously seen as a farce and this part of the Act was soon repealed. It might never have been an Act it might have just been "government policy" at the time, but when the provisional IRA tried to blow up and kill the person who was running the country at the time, certain measures had to be seen to have been taken place.

[hlthe2b]

12. self-delete

never mind

[Deep13]

13. Yes and yes. nt

[Maeve]

15. Four different questions there

Past tense--yes, the IRA were terrorists, but declared a ceasefire in 1997 and decommissioned in 2005. So they are no longer terrorists according to the Independent Monitoring Commission, although they are still on the UK list and an illegal group in the Republic of Ireland. There are some former IRA and splinter groups who haven't given up the gun. There are always fools.

IF Adams was part of the IRA, he is credited with guiding it toward the peaceful path--he denies that he ever was IRA, however. He did guide Sinn Fein away from being the voice of the IRA and into mainstream politics. Adams is part of the current government of Northern Ireland and a Member of Parliament in Westminister for West Belfast (but does not attend).