Despite the success of the Northern Ireland peace process, a querulous spirit of hostility still prevails in some unionist circles. Clinging to the ancient certainties of a divided Ulster, some continue to predict-even desire-disaster. But we should no longer pay them any attention. These prophets of doom-from Conor Cruise O'Brien to Ian Paisley-have turned out to be hopeless forecasters. At every turn, from the Stormont talks to the referendum, they have been wrong.
And on no single issue have they been more completely wrong than on Gerry Adams's leadership of Irish Republicanism. We have heard all sorts of warnings: that Adams was just using the talks as a manoeuvre to disarm the security forces or get his people out of prison; that the IRA would split over the peace deal; that he would never renounce violence. None of this has happened. Instead, Adams has achieved what was unthinkable a decade ago: compelling Republicans to abandon armed struggle while recognising the principle of consent for the people of Ulster. Adams should now be seen as a hero of the peace process.
These words do not come lightly. I am an Ulster protestant and until recently I regarded Adams with a mixture of fear and loathing. The formative years of my life were spent in Belfast and Enniskillen at the height of the Troubles, when Adams represented for me all that was worst about physical force Republicanism. This was especially true of the bitter sectarianism aroused by the IRA hunger strike in 1981, when the dying Bobby Sands was elected my MP. As a senior member of the IRA, Adams would not only have ordered bombings, shootings and kneecappings, but was also happy to use weasel words to explain away the most brutal atrocities. I often used to describe him as a fascist-an overused word but in his case an appropriate one because of his readiness to support the use of violence and intimidation in the name of nationalism. With his intense manner, his air of ruthlessness, his heavy, humourless voice, he lived up to the stereotype image of the terrorist.
When the peace process began in the early 1990s, I was cynical about Adams. But, as the pace of the talks quickened, and the second IRA ceasefire held, I gradually came to admire the way that Adams had persuaded Republicans to abandon the armalite. This required courage. It would have been easy to cling to the purity of the struggle. Like some Irish Arthur Scargill, he could have refused compromise. He chose the more responsible course.
His grisly record cannot, of course, be ignored. Although he has always denied direct involvement with the IRA, there is a mass of evidence to the contrary. Indeed, if Adams had played no part in IRA terrorism, he would have no credibility with the gunmen. Moreover, many of Adams's statements as a Republican spokesman have been almost as nauseating as the activities of the IRA itself, as when he explained away the murder of two men working on an RUC station: "They did not have to take the contracts. There's a war going on and they took sides."
But the anger that his record provokes must now be seen in the context of his success in compelling the IRA to join the peace process. There are two remarkable aspects to this achievement. First, the movement has been steeped in the idea of blood sacrifice since the 19th century. It is Patrick Pearse's mentality of heroic martyrdom which prevailed in Republican circles-until the triumph of Adams. Second, and more importantly, is the way Adams has held the movement together. All previous attempts at political solutions have led to violent splits, between the Official and Provisional IRA in the early 1970s, and in the Civil War of 1922-23.
When the Downing Street Declaration was signed in 1993, hardliner Bernadette McAliskey warned: "It cannot be sold. Gerry cannot sell this. That's the beginning and the end of the story." As with so many predictions about Adams, this has been proved utterly wrong. He has sold it, with barely a murmur of dissent. A tiny number of dissidents founded the "Real" IRA and "Continuity" but, after Omagh, even they have fallen into line.
How has he done it? He has a powerful intellect and has always had a hunger to learn; regulars at the Belfast pubs where he worked remember that he always had his nose in a heavyweight text. He is a fine public performer, and is adept at dealing with the media. And the ability to command the loyalty and respect of the men under his command was demonstrated during his spells in the Maze Prison in the 1970s and by his organisation of the hunger strike in 1981. His sense of aloofness helped, as did his record (and his father's) as an IRA volunteer.
Above all, Adams has proved a brilliant strategist over the past 25 years, outmanoeuvring internal and external enemies. The Bobby Sands by-election, the ousting of Gerry Fitt from West Belfast, the manipulation of his role as MP, and his ruthless organisation of the IRA Army Council and Sinn Fein conferences are evidence of his political talent. Some argue that without Adams's gifts, the IRA would have given up years ago. I disagree. The tradition runs too deep; new volunteers would have been found. If Adams had not emerged, the IRA would still be killing Irish citizens in the name of Irish unity.
