THE IRISH PEACE PROCESS:
Hope and History -- Making Peace in Northern Ireland
An Interview and Panel Discussion with Gerry Adams

Gerry Adams - Biography

Gerry Adams is the president of the Irish nationalist political party Sinn Féin.

Adams is acclaimed for continuing efforts to build a stable, democratically–negotiated peace settlement in Ireland. With John Hume, leader of the Socialist Democratic Labor Party, Adams helped revive the Irish peace initiative in 1993. This led to major political developments toward peace including the Downing Street Declaration, the Joint Framework Document and the Irish Republican Army’s announcement of a complete cessation of military operations in 1994. This ultimately led to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 which was ratified by the peoples of Ireland north and south.

Adams became involved in the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland in the 1960s to fight discrimination against Northern Catholics by the Unionist government in Northern Ireland regarding housing, employment, education and language. For his activities, he was interned in 1972 on the Maidstone, a British ship known for inhumane conditions, overcrowding and brutality. Adams then participated in peace talks with the British that resulted in a truce, which the British government broke shortly afterward.

He was arrested again and interned without trial from 1973 to 1977. Unionist forces have targeted his family over the years. British forces killed his brother-in-law and shot his brother. Several of Adams’ family members were imprisoned, and his wife and son narrowly escaped injury after a bomb attack at their home. Adams’ health is adversely affected by years of punishment from his internment and an assassination attempt in Belfast.

Adams was elected as a Member of Parliament (MP) from West Belfast in 1983. In line with the republican tradition, he refused to take his seat in the House of Commons at Westminster because of the compulsory oath of allegiance to the British Queen. Gerry Adams is still the democratically elected West Belfast MP and a member of the legislative assembly in Northern Ireland. Adams is the president of Sein Féin which is celebrating its centenary this year as a political movement in Ireland. Sein Féin is the only all-Ireland party – meaning it has representatives in the northern and southern government.

An author of several books, Adams has written Hope and History: Making Peace in Ireland, A Pathway to Peace, The Politics of Irish Freedom and Selected Writings, which provide expositions of his political thinking; Falls Memories, an autobiographical memoir; Cage Eleven, stories relating to his prison experiences; and Before the Dawn, an autobiography.