Gerry Adams, president of Sinn Féin and one of the most formidable figures in Irish nationalist politics for nearly 50 years, announced at the Sinn Féin party conference in November that he plans to retire in 2018, ceding control of the party he has led for 34 years, and making way for a new generation of Irish republicans to come to the fore. “Leadership means knowing when it … [Read more...] about Gerry Adams Announces Retirement
Gerry Adams
Northern Ireland Undergoes Historic Election Shift
For the first time in history of Northern Ireland there will be a nationalist majority in the national assembly at Stormont. A short 10 months after the previous Northern Ireland Assembly election, the citizens went to the polls again in March. Sinn Féin, the second-largest party in the North had triggered the election in protest over a scandal involving Arlene Foster, the … [Read more...] about Northern Ireland Undergoes Historic Election Shift
Gerry Adams: A Period of Change
In 1991, Irish America magazine published one of the first interviews with Gerry Adams. (As far as we can tell, Playboy was the only other American magazine to interview Adams before that.) In March, of that year, as the 75th Anniversary of the 1916 Rising loomed and violence continued on both sides in Northern Ireland, Patricia Harty traveled to West Belfast to interview the … [Read more...] about Gerry Adams: A Period of Change
Twenty Years After
the IRA Ceasefire
August 31 marked the 20th anniversary of the 1994 IRA ceasefire that paved the way for the ending of the Troubles in Northern Ireland and the beginning of the Good Friday Agreement. This historic event is being celebrated all over Ireland and America as the world remembers this historic moment. Niall O’Dowd, co founder of Irish America and founder of IrishCentral, offered … [Read more...] about Twenty Years After
the IRA Ceasefire
Gerry Adams Arrested
Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams was arrested in Northern Ireland on Wednesday, April 30, and held until the following Sunday night when he was released without charge. Police cited new evidence from a Boston College Burns Library oral history project in which former IRA members apparently named Adams in connection with the kidnapping and killing of Jean McConville’s in 1972. Adams … [Read more...] about Gerry Adams Arrested