Author defends Adams IRA claims
Monday March 29, 2010
Monday March 29, 2010
The author of a new book alleging Gerry Adams was an IRA leader at the height of its campaign has rejected claims the allegations are being made by republicans opposed to Sinn Fein.
The latest claims that Mr Adams was a top IRA member in Belfast during some of its most infamous attacks were made by a senior republican, Brendan "Darkie" Hughes, in interviews carried out before he died in 2008.
Mr Adams has always denied ever being an IRA member and on Sunday Sinn Fein dismissed the renewed allegations that he was a leader of the group and was linked to the IRA murder of mother-of-ten Jean McConville and the "Bloody Friday" bomb blitz on Belfast which killed nine people in 1972.
Sinn Fein said the allegations are not new and claims the posthumous accounts of IRA activities were gathered with the help of republicans who "have been opposed to Sinn Fein's peace strategy from the outset".
But the author of the new book, Voices From The Grave, Ed Moloney on Monday said: "What Brendan Hughes has done here is, first of all, unprecedented in IRA annals. It has never happened before that someone like this has come forward, albeit giving interviews that wouldn't appear until his death, to tell the unvarnished truth as they saw it about what happened and who was involved."
Mr Moloney said Mr Hughes was angered by his belief that top republicans had denied their former role in the IRA. The author said: "It's pretty disappointing that every time something like this happens, the accusation is made that there is an agenda-driven effort going on here and it's just not the case."
Mr Moloney said he had encouraged the efforts to collect stories from republican and loyalist paramilitaries involved in the conflict to act as a store of information from the Troubles, with the research exercise backed by Boston college in the US.
The interviews with Mr Hughes are carried in the new book in which the deceased IRA member, who was once a close friend of Mr Adams but who later became a critic of Sinn Fein's political strategy, is quoted recalling his own earlier role in the republican movement.
"I find it difficult to come to terms [with] the fact that this man [Gerry Adams] has turned his back on everything that we ever did," Mr Hughes said. "I never carried out a major [IRA] operation without the OK or the order from Gerry."
But Sinn Fein said its leader had already denied the claims contained in the book. A party spokesperson said: "The allegations are not new. Gerry Adams has consistently denied these. In the last years of his life Brendan Hughes was very ill and he publicly disagreed with the strategy being pursued by republicans."
Press Association
2 comments:
It just seems to me that this rehash of an old story as elections are approaching is not so much directed at the tragedy of Jean McConville's death as it is to discredit both Gerry Adams and Sinn Fein in these elections. This claim was made in 2001/2002 by a then disenchanted and dying Brendan Hughes. Much ado was made about these accusations then and they apparently went unproven or for that matter confirmed by any other source. Speculation and innuendo have long been a tool of the British to discredit Republican candidates and I, for one, see no reason to become riled or defensive for Gerry or Sinn Fein. Just as the Orange Order have once again shown their true colors on the impending visit by the Pope to England, so are the Loyalist and British securocrats and spin doctors seeking to discredit worthy candidates for public office.
Jim:
You can't seriously believe that Gerry Adams was not a member of the IRA?
"Darkie" exudes much more credibility. And some of his assertions have been backed up by people like Anthony McIntyre and Dolours Price.
As far as attacking the Pope and the Catholic Church, Sinn Fein are no amateurs in that regard. When it comes to child molesters, they should clean up their own ranks first.
An Sionnach
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