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Gerry Adams

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Dornálaíocht (talk | contribs) at 13:37, 26 January 2011 (No confirmation that Adams has accepted the title of Baron. "Gerry Adams spokesperson maintains the only correspondence has been the letter sent to the speaker last week "). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Gerry Adams
Gearóid Mac Ádhaimh
President of Sinn Féin
Incumbent
Assumed office
13 November 1983
Preceded byRuairí Ó Brádaigh
Member of Parliament
for Belfast West
In office
1 May 1997 – 26 January 2011
Preceded byJoe Hendron
Majority17,759 (54.7%)
In office
9 June 1983 – 9 April 1992
Preceded byGerry Fitt
Succeeded byJoe Hendron
Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly
for Belfast West
In office
25 June 1998 – 7 December 2010
Preceded byConstituency established
Succeeded byPat Sheehan
Personal details
Born (1948-10-06) 6 October 1948 (age 76)
Belfast, Northern Ireland
NationalityIrish[1][2]
Political partySinn Féin
SpouseCollette McArdle
WebsiteOfficial website

Gerry Adams (Template:Lang-ga;[3] born 6 October 1948) is an Irish republican politician. From 1983 to 1992 and from 1997, he has been an abstentionist Westminster Member of Parliament for Belfast West. He is the president of Sinn Féin, the largest political party in Northern Ireland.[4][5][6] From the late 1980s onwards, Adams has been an important figure in the Northern Ireland peace process, initially following contact by the then Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) leader John Hume and subsequently with the Irish and British governments and then other parties. In 2005, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) indicated that its armed campaign was over and that it is now exclusively committed to democratic politics.[7] Under Adams, Sinn Féin changed its traditional policy of abstentionism towards Oireachtas Éireann, the parliament of the Republic of Ireland, in 1986 and later took seats in the power-sharing Northern Ireland Assembly. However, Sinn Féin retains a policy of abstentionism towards the Westminster Parliament, but since 2002, receives allowances for staff and takes up offices in the House of Commons.[8]

Ancestry and early life

Adams' parents, Gerry Adams Sr. and Annie Hannaway came from republican backgrounds. Adams' grandfather, also called Gerry Adams, had been a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) during the Irish War of Independence. Two of Adams' uncles, Dominic and Patrick Adams, had been interned by the governments in Belfast and Dublin. Although it is reported that his uncle Dominic was a one-time IRA chief of staff, J. Bowyer Bell, in his book, The Secret Army: The IRA 1916 (Irish Academy Press), states that Dominic Adams was a senior figure in the IRA of the mid-1940s. Gerry Sr. joined the IRA at aged sixteen. In 1942, he participated in an IRA ambush on a Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) patrol but was himself shot, arrested and sentenced to eight years imprisonment.

Adams' maternal great-grandfather, Michael Hannaway, was a member of the Fenians during their dynamiting campaign in England in the 1860s and 1870s. Michael's son, Billy, was election agent for Éamon de Valera in 1918 in West Belfast but refused to follow de Valera into democratic and constitutional politics upon the formation of Fianna Fáil.

Annie Hannaway was a member of Cumann na mBan, the women's branch of the IRA. Three of her brothers (Alfie, Liam and Tommy) were known IRA members.

Adams attended St Finian's Primary School on the Falls Road where he was taught by De La Salle brothers. Having passed the eleven-plus exam in 1960, he then attended St Mary's Christian Brothers Grammar School. He left St. Mary's with six O-levels, and became a barman. He was increasingly involved in the Irish republican movement, joining Sinn Féin and Fianna Éireann in 1964, after being radicalised by the Divis Street riots during the general election campaign.[9]

In 1971, Adams married Collette McArdle,[10] by whom he has three children.

Early political career

The Easter Lily is a badge worn at Easter by Irish republicans as symbol of remembrance for Irish combatants who died during or were executed after the 1916 Easter Rising.

In the late 1960s, a civil rights campaign developed in Northern Ireland. Adams was an active supporter and joined the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association in 1967.[9] However, the civil rights movement was met with protests from loyalist counter-demonstrators. In August 1969, Northern Ireland cities like Belfast and Derry erupted in major rioting and British troops were called in at the request of the Government of Northern Ireland (see 1969 Northern Ireland Riots).

Adams was active in Sinn Féin at this time, siding with the Provisionals in the split of 1970.[citation needed] In August 1971, internment was reintroduced to Northern Ireland under the Special Powers Act 1922. Adams was interned in March 1972, on HMS Maidstone, but was released in June to take part in secret, but abortive talks in London.[9] The IRA negotiated a short-lived truce with the British government and an IRA delegation met with the British Home Secretary, William Whitelaw at Cheyne Walk in Chelsea. The delegation included Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness, Sean Mac Stiofain (IRA Chief of Staff), Daithi O'Conaill, Seamus Twomey, Ivor Bell and Dublin solicitor Myles Shevlin.[11] The IRA insisted Adams be included in the meeting and he was released from internment to participate. Following the failure of the talks, he played a central role in planning the bomb blitz on Belfast known as Bloody Friday.[9] He was re-arrested in July 1973 and interned at the Long Kesh internment camp. After taking part in an IRA-organised escape attempt, he was sentenced to a period of imprisonment. During this time, he wrote articles in the paper An Phoblacht under the by-line "Brownie", where he criticized the strategy and policy of Ruairí Ó Brádaigh and Billy McKee. He was also highly critical of a decision taken in Belfast by McKee to assassinate members of the rival Official IRA, who had been on ceasefire since 1972.[12] After his release in 1976, he was again arrested in 1978 for alleged IRA membership, the charges were subsequently dismissed.[13]

During the 1981 hunger strike, Adams played an important policy-making role, which saw the emergence of his party as a political force. In 1983, he was elected president of Sinn Féin and became the first Sinn Féin MP elected to the British House of Commons since Phil Clarke and Tom Mitchell in the mid-1950s.[9] Following his election as MP for Belfast West, the British government lifted a ban on him travelling to Great Britain. In line with Sinn Féin policy, he refused to take his seat in the House of Commons.

On 14 March 1984 in central Belfast, Adams was seriously wounded in an assassination attempt when several Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF) gunmen fired about 20 shots into the car in which he was travelling. He was hit in the neck, shoulder and arm. After the shooting, he was rushed to the Royal Victoria Hospital, where he underwent surgery to remove the three bullets which had entered his body. Under-cover plain clothes police officers seized three suspects who were later convicted and sentenced.[14] One of the three was John Gregg, who would be killed by Loyalists in 2003. Adams claimed that the British army had prior knowledge of the attack and allowed it to go ahead.[15]

Allegations of IRA membership

Adams has stated repeatedly that he has never been a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA).[16] However, journalists such as Ed Moloney, Peter Taylor, Mark Urban and historian Richard English have all named Adams as part of the IRA leadership since the 1970s.[17][18][19][20] Adams has denied Moloney's claims, calling them "libellous".[21]

President of Sinn Féin

In 1978, Gerry Adams became joint vice-president of Sinn Féin and a key figure in directing a challenge to the Sinn Féin leadership of President Ruairí Ó Brádaigh and joint vice- president Dáithí Ó Conaill.

The 1975 IRA-British truce is often viewed as the event that began the challenge to the original Provisional Sinn Féin leadership, which was said to be Southern-based and dominated by southerners like Ó Brádaigh and Ó Conaill. However, the Chief of Staff of the IRA at the time, Seamus Twomey, was a senior figure from Belfast. Others in the leadership were also Northern based, including Billy McKee from Belfast. Adams (allegedly) rose to become the most senior figure in the IRA Northern Command on the basis of his absolute rejection of anything but military action, but this conflicts with the fact that during his time in prison, Adams came to reassess his approach and became more political.[citation needed]

One of the reasons that the Provisional IRA and provisional Sinn Féin were founded, in December 1969 and January 1970, respectively, was that people like Ó Brádaigh, O'Connell and McKee opposed participation in constitutional politics. The other reason was the failure of the Goulding leadership to provide for the defence of nationalist areas. When, at the December 1969 IRA convention and the January 1970 Sinn Féin Ard Fheis the delegates voted to participate in the Dublin (Leinster House), Belfast (Stormont) and London (Westminster) parliaments, the organizations split. Gerry Adams, who had joined the Republican Movement in the early 1960s, sided with the Provisionals.

In Long Kesh in the mid-1970s, and writing under the pseudonym "Brownie" in Republican News, Adams called on Republicans for increased political activity, especially at a local level.[22] The call resonated with younger Northern people, many of whom had been active in the Provisional IRA but had not necessarily been highly active in Sinn Féin. In 1977, Adams and Danny Morrison drafted the address of Jimmy Drumm at the Annual Wolfe Tone Commemoration at Bodenstown. The address was viewed as watershed in that Drumm acknowledged that the war would be a long one and that success depended on political activity that would complement the IRA's armed campaign. For some,[who?] this wedding of politics and armed struggle culminated in Danny Morrison's statement at the 1981 Sinn Féin Ard Fheis in which he asked "Who here really believes we can win the war through the Ballot box? But will anyone here object if, with a ballot paper in one hand and the Armalite in the other, we take power in Ireland". For others, however, the call to link political activity with armed struggle had been clearly defined in Sinn Féin policy and in the Presidential Addresses of Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, but it had not resonated with the young Northerners.[23]

Gerry Adams at the Fermanagh Commemoration.

Even after the election of Bobby Sands as MP for Fermanagh/South Tyrone, a part of the mass mobilization associated with the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike by republican prisoners in the H blocks of the Maze prison (known as Long Kesh by Republicans), Adams was cautious about the level of political involvement by Sinn Féin. Charles Haughey, the Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland, called an election for June 1981. At an Ard Chomhairle meeting, Adams recommended that they contest only four constituencies which were in border counties. Instead, H-Block/Armagh Candidates contested nine constituencies and elected two TDs. This, along with the election of Bobby Sands, was a precursor to a big electoral breakthrough in elections in 1982 to the Northern Ireland Assembly.[24] Adams, Danny Morrison, Martin McGuinness, Jim McAllister, and Owen Carron were elected as abstentionists. The Social Democratic Labour Party (SDLP) had announced before the election that it would not take any seats and so its 14 elected representatives also abstained from participating in the Assembly and it was a failure. The 1982 election was followed by the 1983 Westminster election, in which Sinn Féin's vote increased and Gerry Adams was elected, as an abstentionist, as MP for West Belfast. It was in 1983 that Ruairí Ó Brádaigh resigned as President of Sinn Féin and was succeeded by Gerry Adams.

Republicans had long claimed that the only legitimate Irish state was the Irish Republic declared in the Proclamation of the Republic of 1916, which they considered to be still in existence.[citation needed] In their view, the legitimate government was the IRA Army Council, which had been vested with the authority of that Republic in 1938 (prior to the Second World War) by the last remaining anti-Treaty deputies of the Second Dáil. Adams continued to adhere to this claim of republican political legitimacy[citation needed] until quite recently - however, in his 2005 speech to the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis he explicitly rejected it.

As a result of this non-recognition, Sinn Féin had abstained from taking any of the seats they won in the British or Irish parliaments. At its 1986 Ard Fheis, Sinn Féin delegates passed a resolution to amend the rules and constitution that would allow its members to sit in the Dublin parliament (Leinster House/Dáil Éireann). At this, Ruairí Ó Brádaigh led a small walkout, just as he and Sean Mac Stiofain had done sixteen years earlier with the creation of Provisional Sinn Féin.[25][26][27][28] This minority, which rejected dropping the policy of abstentionism, now nominally distinguishes itself from Provisional Sinn Féin by using the name Republican Sinn Féin (or Sinn Féin Poblachtach), and maintains that they are the true Sinn Féin republicans.

Adams' leadership of Sinn Féin was supported by a Northern-based cadre that included people like Danny Morrison and Martin McGuinness. Over time, Adams and others pointed to Republican electoral successes in the early and mid-1980s, when hunger strikers Bobby Sands and Kieran Doherty were elected to the British House of Commons and Dáil Éireann respectively, and they advocated that Sinn Féin become increasingly political and base its influence on electoral politics rather than paramilitarism. The electoral effects of this strategy were shown later by the election of Adams and McGuinness to the House of Commons.

Voice ban

Adams's prominence as an Irish Republican leader was increased by the ban on the media broadcast of his voice (the ban actually covered eleven republican and loyalist organisations,[29] but in practice Adams was the only one prominent enough to appear regularly on TV). This ban was imposed by the then prime minister Margaret Thatcher on 19 October 1988, the reason given being to "starve the terrorist and the hijacker of the oxygen of publicity on which they depend"[30] after the BBC interviewed Martin McGuinness[31] and Adams had been the focus of a row over an edition of After Dark, an intended Channel 4 discussion programme which was never made.[32]

A similar ban, known as Section 31, had been law in the Republic of Ireland since the 1970s. However, media outlets soon found ways around the ban, initially by the use of subtitles, but later and more commonly by the use of an actor reading his words over the images of him speaking. One actor who voiced Adams was Paul Loughran.[33]

This ban was lampooned in cartoons and satirical TV shows, such as Spitting Image, and in The Day Today and was criticised by freedom of speech organisations and British media personalities, including BBC Director General John Birt and BBC foreign editor John Simpson. The ban was lifted by British Prime Minister John Major on 17 September 1994.[citation needed]

Moving into mainstream politics

Gerry Adams at the launch of special limited Dublin edition of An Phoblacht, Easter 2008.

Sinn Féin continued its policy of refusing to sit in the Westminster Parliament even after Adams won the Belfast West constituency. He lost his seat to Joe Hendron of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) in the 1992 general election, regaining it at the next election five years later.

Under Adams, Sinn Féin appeared to move away from being a political voice of the Provisional IRA to becoming a professionally organised political party in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

SDLP leader John Hume, MP, identified the possibility that a negotiated settlement might be possible and began secret talks with Adams in 1988. These discussions led to unofficial contacts with the British Northern Ireland Office under the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Peter Brooke, and with the government of the Republic under Charles Haughey – although both governments maintained in public that they would not negotiate with "terrorists".

These talks provided the groundwork for what was later to be the Belfast Agreement, as well as the milestone Downing Street Declaration and the Joint Framework Document.

These negotiations led to the IRA ceasefire in August 1994. Irish Taoiseach Albert Reynolds, who had replaced Haughey and who had played a key role in the Hume/Adams dialogue through his Special Advisor Martin Mansergh, regarded the ceasefire as permanent. However, the slow pace of developments contributed in part to the (wider) political difficulties of the British government of John Major and the consequent reliance on Ulster Unionist Party votes in the House of Commons, led the IRA to end its ceasefire and resume the campaign.[citation needed]

A re-instituted ceasefire later followed as part of the negotiations strategy, which saw teams from the British and Irish governments, the Ulster Unionist Party, the SDLP, Sinn Féin and representatives of loyalist paramilitary organizations, under the chairmanship of former United States Senator George Mitchell, produced the Belfast Agreement (also called the Good Friday Agreement as it was signed on Good Friday, 1998). Under the agreement, structures were created reflecting the Irish and British identities of the people of Ireland, with a British-Irish Council and a Northern Ireland Legislative Assembly created.

Articles 2 and 3 of the Republic's constitution, Bunreacht na hÉireann, which claimed sovereignty over all of Ireland, were reworded, and a power-sharing Executive Committee was provided for. As part of their deal, Sinn Féin agreed to abandon its abstentionist policy regarding a "six-county parliament", as a result taking seats in the new Stormont-based Assembly and running the education and health and social services ministries in the power-sharing government.

Opponents in Republican Sinn Féin accused Sinn Féin of "selling out" by agreeing to participate in what it called "partitionist assemblies" in the Republic and Northern Ireland. However, Gerry Adams insisted that the Belfast Agreement provided a mechanism to deliver a united Ireland by non-violent and constitutional means, much as Michael Collins had said of the Anglo-Irish Treaty nearly 80 years earlier.

When Sinn Féin came to nominate its two ministers to the Northern Ireland Executive, for tactical reasons the party, like the SDLP and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), chose not to include its leader among its ministers. (When later the SDLP chose a new leader, it selected one of its ministers, Mark Durkan, who then opted to remain in the Committee.)

Adams remains the President of Sinn Féin, with Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin serving as Sinn Féin parliamentary leader in Dáil Éireann, and Daithí McKay as head of the Sinn Féin group in the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Adams was re-elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly on 8 March 2007,[34] and on 26 March 2007, he met with DUP leader Ian Paisley face-to-face for the first time, and the two came to an agreement regarding the return of the power-sharing executive in Northern Ireland.[35]

In January 2009, Adams attended the United States presidential Inauguration of Barack Obama as a guest of US Congressman Richard Neal.[36]

On 6 May 2010, Adams was re-elected as MP for West Belfast garnering 71.1% of the vote.[37]

Dáil Éireann bid

In 2010, Adams announced that he would be seeking election as a TD (member of Irish Parliament) for the constituency of Louth at the 2011 Irish general election.[38] He subsequently resigned his West Belfast Assembly seat on 7 December 2010,[39] Following the announcement of the Irish general election, 2011, Adams wrote to the House of Commons to resign his seat[40] to fight the Louth constituency.[41] Under British law however, MPs may only resign by applying for an "office of profit under the crown", and so his resignation remained unaccepted.[42] Adams ultimately accepted the Stewardship of the Manor of Northstead, one of the two accepted appointments for MPs wishing to leave the House of Commons.[43]

See also

References

  1. ^ "World Politics Review | Sinn Fein's Adams on 'Peace Mission' to Middle East". Worldpoliticsreview.com. Retrieved 2008-10-31.
  2. ^ "Newshound: Daily Northern Ireland news catalog - Irish News article". Nuzhound.com. Retrieved 2008-10-31.
  3. ^ Cairt Chearta do Chách Sinn Féin press release, 26 January 2004.
  4. ^ "Sinn Fein tops poll in Euro count". BBC News. 8 June 2009. Retrieved 2 April 2010.
  5. ^ "History made - Sinn Féin is now the largest party in the Six Counties | Sinn Féin". Sinnfein.ie. Retrieved 2010-06-16.
  6. ^ Devenport, Mark (2009-06-08). "Who hit and who missed Euro target?". BBC News. Retrieved 2010-06-16.
  7. ^ "Full text: IRA statement". London: The Guardian. 28 July 2005. Retrieved 2007-03-17.
  8. ^ "Microsoft Word - snpc-01667.doc" (PDF). Retrieved 2010-06-16.
  9. ^ a b c d e Lalor, Brian (ed) (2003). The Encyclopaedia of Ireland. Dublin, Ireland: Gill & Macmillan. pp. 7–8. ISBN 0-7171-3000-2. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help)
  10. ^ The Independent, 10 April 2006
  11. ^ The long war: the IRA and Sinn Féin, Brendan O'Brien, p169. Books.google.co.uk. 1999. ISBN 9780815605973. Retrieved 2010-06-16.
  12. ^ Moloney, pp. 166-168.
  13. ^ Northern Ireland Assembly Information Office (2010-06-03). "Biography - Gerry Adams". Niassembly.gov.uk. Retrieved 2011-01-01.
  14. ^ "1984: Sinn Féin leader shot in street attack". BBC. 14 March 1984. Retrieved 2007-03-22.
  15. ^ Kevin Maguire (14 December 2006). "Adams wants 1984 shooting probe". BBC. Retrieved 2007-03-22.
  16. ^ Rosie Cowan (1 October 2002). "Adams denies IRA links as book calls him a genius". London: The Guardian. Retrieved 2007-03-22.
  17. ^ Moloney, Ed (2002). A Secret History of the IRA. Penguin Books. p. 140. ISBN 0-141-01041-X.
  18. ^ Taylor, Peter (1997). Provos The IRA & Sinn Féin. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 140. ISBN 0-7475-3818-2.
  19. ^ English, Richard (2003). Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA. Pan Books. p. 110. ISBN 0-330-49388-4.
  20. ^ Urban, Mark (1993). Big Boys' Rules: SAS and the Secret Struggle Against the IRA. Faber and Faber. p. 26. ISBN 0-571-16809-4.
  21. ^ Adams denies IRA book allegations. BBC News. 12 September 2002
  22. ^ "Sinn Féin: where does the money come from?" (Document). Irish Independent. 19 June 2004. {{cite document}}: Unknown parameter |url= ignored (help)
  23. ^ Robert White, Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, The Life and Politics of an Irish Revolutionary, pp. 258-59.
  24. ^ Dr Nicholas Whyte. "Northern Ireland Assembly Elections 1982". Ark.ac.uk. Retrieved 2011-01-01.
  25. ^ Taylor, p. 291.
  26. ^ Anderson, Brendan (2002). Joe Cahill: A Life in the IRA. O'Brien Press. p. 340. ISBN 0-86278-836-6.
  27. ^ O'Brien, Brendan (1999). The Long War: The IRA and Sinn Féin. O'Brien Press. p. 130. ISBN 0-86278-606-1.
  28. ^ Bishop, Patrick & Mallie, Eamonn (1987). The Provisional IRA. Corgi Books. p. 448. ISBN 0-552-13337-X.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  29. ^ The 'broadcast ban' on Sinn Fein, BBC News Online, 5 April 2005
  30. ^ Edgerton, Gary Quelling the "Oxygen of Publicity": British Broadcasting and "The Troubles" During the Thatcher Years, The Journal of Popular Culture, Volume 30, Issue 1, pp. 115-32
  31. ^ Dubbing SF voices becomes the stuff of history, By Michael Foley The Irish Times, 17 September 1994
  32. ^ Wikipedia article on After Dark and Gerry Adams, accessed 7th August 2009
  33. ^ "www.ulsteractors.com". ulsteractors.com. Retrieved 2009-04-10.
  34. ^ Sinn Fein's Gerry Adams Wins In Northern Ireland. Associated Press, 8 March 2007.
  35. ^ "May date for return to devolution". BBC. 26 March 2007. Retrieved 2007-03-26.
  36. ^ 19/Jan/2009 Barack Obama inauguration: Gerry Adams to attend ceremony Telegraph.co.uk
  37. ^ "Election 2010". BBC. 7 May 2010. Retrieved 2010-05-07.
  38. ^ "Adams to contest Co Louth seat for SF in next election". Irish Times. 14 November 2010. Retrieved November 14, 2010.
  39. ^ Northern Ireland Assembly Information Office. "NI Assembly membership, note 17". Niassembly.gov.uk. Retrieved 2011-01-01.
  40. ^ "Gerry Adams quits Westminster seat". Belfasttelegraph.co.uk. 2011-01-20. Retrieved 2011-01-24.
  41. ^ "Gerry Adams resigns as West Belfast MP". Bbc.co.uk. 2011-01-20. Retrieved 2011-01-24.
  42. ^ "Adams 'must follow parliamentary rules to resign as MP'". bbc.co.uk. 2011-01-25. Retrieved 2011-01-25.
  43. ^ "Cameron confirms Gerry Adams resignation". The Independent. 2011-01-26. Retrieved 2011-01-26.

Published works

  • Falls Memories, 1982
  • The Politics of Irish Freedom, 1986
  • A Pathway to Peace, 1988
  • An Irish Voice
  • Cage Eleven, 1990
  • The Street and Other Stories, 1992
  • Free Ireland: Towards a Lasting Peace, 1995
  • Before the Dawn, 1996, Brandon Books, ISBN 0-434-00341-7
  • Selected Writings
  • Who Fears to Speak...?, 2001(Original Edition 1991), Beyond the Pale Publications, ISBN 1-900960-13-3
  • An Irish Journal, 2001, Brandon Books, ISBN 0-86322-282-X
  • Hope and History, 2003, Brandon Books, ISBN 0-86322-330-3
  • A Farther Shore, 2005, Random House
  • "The New Ireland: A Vision For The Future", 2005, Brandon Books, ISBN 0-86322-344-3
  • An Irish Eye, 2007, Brandon Books
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Parliament of the United Kingdom

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Northern Ireland Assembly
Preceded by
New creation
 MLA for Belfast West
1998 - 2010 		Succeeded by
Party political offices
Preceded by Vice-President of Sinn Féin
with Joe Cahill then Dáithí Ó Conaill
1978–1983 		Succeeded by

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