Die hard faithfull still supportering SF-IRA
Posted: Thu Mar 17, 2005 3:16 am
Gerry Adams was on stage as a guest of New York's Transport Workers Union explaining how comfortable he feels in America, when one of the myriad orange, green and white balloons festooning the hall popped with a loud bang. "That', he said without pause, ''also makes me feel at home''.
It was a joke that drew easy laughter from his audience, Irish-American members of the union who had gathered for an annual dinner to honour two fathers of the Irish republican movement, James Connolly and Michael Quill.
Already, they had given Mr Adams, as president of Sinn Fein, a standing ovation as he had entered the room accompanied by strains of marching bagpipes and drums.
The recent allegations that Sinn Fein turned a blind eye to violence and crime committed by the IRA, the heist at the Northern Ireland bank, and the murder in a bar of Robert McCartney has not given Mr Adams any cause to celebrate. Worse, his annual St Patrick's Day week in America has been eclipsed.
But Mr Adams vowed to fulfil the promise that most Irish Americans love to hear, the unification of North and South.
Is he telling them the war is not over, and the IRA has not gone away........
It was a joke that drew easy laughter from his audience, Irish-American members of the union who had gathered for an annual dinner to honour two fathers of the Irish republican movement, James Connolly and Michael Quill.
Already, they had given Mr Adams, as president of Sinn Fein, a standing ovation as he had entered the room accompanied by strains of marching bagpipes and drums.
The recent allegations that Sinn Fein turned a blind eye to violence and crime committed by the IRA, the heist at the Northern Ireland bank, and the murder in a bar of Robert McCartney has not given Mr Adams any cause to celebrate. Worse, his annual St Patrick's Day week in America has been eclipsed.
But Mr Adams vowed to fulfil the promise that most Irish Americans love to hear, the unification of North and South.
Is he telling them the war is not over, and the IRA has not gone away........