Latest allegations are just 'water off a duck's back' for Gerry Adams

The Government Chief Whip and Meath East TD wasn’t quite ready to join the chorus of politicians calling out the Sinn Fein leader on accusations of his involvement in the murder of double agent Denis Donaldson 10 years ago and his political past.

Enda Kenny and Leo Vardakar both said publicly last week that allegations Gerry Adams sanctioned the assassination should be investigated. Adams has vigorously denied any involvement in the killing in remote Donegal in 2006, six months after Donaldson was exposed as a spy.

“I’m not so sure about this week... I think if the IRA had sanctioned Donaldson’s murder, I don’t think they would have left the evidence behind that was left behind. I don’t know,” she says.

What she says she knows however is that the Irish public has already made up its mind on Adams’ past. 

“I think this is all water off a duck’s back for Gerry Adams because it (the question of his leadership of the IRA) comes up so often that I think people at home have decided. But does it matter? Does it matter to the people of Louth who resoundly endorsed him and Sinn Fein at the last election? It matters to me. Why? Because I believe he is lying.”

Speaking to the Meath Chronicle this week as the Dail returns after the summer break, the Ratoath TD was happy to resurrect her views on the Sinn Fein leader many of which she famously aired in a heated debate with him on LMFM earlier this year.

“I have huge respect for the fact that one day he decided they needed to move the movement from where it was. It was certainly not being successful and they could have carried that on for another 30 years and they’d still be none the wiser and no further along the road to a united Ireland, so there’s huge credit involved in that but there’s also more credit due to the people like John Hume and all the other players who made it a reality because he does seem to fancy himself something rotten for being the person who delivered that.

 

 

“Well, its very easy to deliver that if you were the very person responsible for the charges of murder and mayhem for 30 years, you just had to turn off the switch, once you gave the order and once you brought people with you, which he did do in fairness.

 

But if he said that he’d have the pants sued off him and personal charges brought against him.”
The fallout from that February Michael Reade LMFM radio show included a death threat and an investigation that ultimately led gardai knocking on a door in the northwest.

“It was a gentleman from Donegal who wasn’t very bright or wasn’t very well. I was on Vincent Browne one night and he obviously didn’t like the cut of my gib or whatever but he called and left two voicemail messages on my office phone that he was going to burn my house down with my kids in it. I have four small kids. So the Gardai were called, they were able to trace where the call came from and able to figure out who he was and they were able to knock on his door. ‘And sure, I didn’t think she’d take that seriously’ was the reaction.

It was no big deal, but he still did ring my office twice in one night.” 

Like Taoiseach Enda Kenny, Gerry Adams is keeping the date of his departure as Sinn Fein leader a closely guarded secret. His obvious successor is another target for Doherty particularly after the treatment of Mairia Cahill - who says she was raped by a prominent member of the IRA when just 16 years of age.

She became very friendly with Mairia Cahill over the last couple of years and is critical of how Gerry Adams treated her. And she’s critical of Mary Lou McDonald too.

I don’t think there was any reason for Mary Lou to treat her the way she did. I think she let herself down.

“She won’t force the issue of Gerry Adams stepping down. She wants to lead but she has to impress of a lot hardliners and I think that’s one hell of a hard job, not that I’m concerned one way or the other. But its sad because I used to really admire her, her guts, the way she can deliver, now I’m just bored of her and that’s a pity because she did have the capacity to be really great female leader. But she’s lost a lot of that in my eye.”

 

 

When the Sinn Fein leader leaves office is of little concern to Doherty and she won’t be asking her own boss the question either. Not after the last time.

 “It was an incredibly stupid thing for me to say.” says Doherty of her July radio interview in which she urged the Fine Gael leader to clarify his date for departure in the wake of a traumatic general election for the party and the subsequent and messy attempts to formulate a new Government.

“I’m probably guilty of not contriving things. I didn’t come to meet the Meath Chronicle this morning and ponder what sort of message am I going to get across to you, will I be guarded and say this or not say that. I was having a conversation with LMFM’s Mike Reade that morning and said something incredibly foolish. And notwithstanding the furore it caused I actually didn’t want him to go.

“I got an awful hard time for a week but then people forgot about it and moved on but I beat myself up for

weeks over it. ‘Why did I say that, how could I, etc etc. We went to Wexford for a week and my husband 

Declan said if I didn’t snap out of it...Anyway I worked it out of my system and, well, I won’t make that mistake again. I’m over it now!” she insists.

 Who will succeed Enda Kenny when he does eventually decide to exit the fray isn’t something that preoccupies Doherty. Notions about being the first female leader of the party, less so. For now.

“I don’t do this ‘women’ thing. Yesterday we were at this panel discussion in town and there were nine men and myself debating. People were tweeting about it afterwards. I never noticed, I was more concerned about what they were saying and their views rather than me being the only woman. I don’t want a leader because she’s a woman. If the best person available at the time were picking a leader happens to be a woman than game ball but never say never.”