I just can't help wondering what Gerry Adams has said or done recently, not 40 years ago, that has led to his arrest.

Exactly my thought too.

Just going to post some various stuff on this and read the entrails....see where it leads...

Quote: Five key questions and answers about the arrest of Gerry Adams

• By Henry Farrel
  
• May 1 at 1:28 am
  

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams arrives at the funeral of veteran British Labor politician Tony Benn at St. Margaret's Church at Westminster Abbey in London on March 27. (Neil Hall/ Reuters)

Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Fein and one of the key figures in the Northern Ireland peace process, has been arrested on suspicion of involvement in the murder some 40 years ago of Jean McConville, a widowed mother of 10. It's too early to say how, or indeed whether, he'll be charged, or how strong the evidence is against him. But this will certainly have important political repercussions. As an ersatz expert in Irish politics, (I'm from Ireland; I have a masters' degree in Irish politics) here's my take:
How important is Gerry Adams for Irish politics?
Not as important as he used to be. There have been widespread allegations that Adams played a leadership role in the IRA, and Ireland's prime minister, Enda Kenny, has challenged Adams to come clean on his past involvement in the organization. Sinn Fein, his political party, hasn't sought to bury its past relationship with the Irish Republican Army's terrorist campaign, but it hasn't heavily emphasized that association either. It's not a vote winner. Adams represents an older generation in Sinn Fein, which is plausibly an electoral liability in much of the Republic of Ireland. He has also been seriously damaged by the revelation last year that his brother, Liam Adams, sexually abused his 5-year-old daughter, and that he (Gerry Adams) knew about the abuse in 2000 and didn't report it until 2009.
What are the consequences for peace in Northern Ireland?
Very hard to say. A lot will depend on how Sinn Fein and the IRA (which is intimately associated with Sinn Fein) react. Under the peace agreement, large numbers of IRA prisoners were released. The status of those who had not been charged with crimes (and hence weren't prisoners at the time) was left ambiguous. However, Sinn Fein clearly believed that it had secured an effective commitment that the people who were responsible for these crimes would be left unprosecuted. If Sinn Fein pulls out of the government of Northern Ireland, it will immediately precipitate a political crisis. If the party just makes loud angry noises, the current power sharing arrangement will survive. For now, Sinn Fein is just making loud angry noises.
Adams isn't the first person with IRA ties to be arrested in connection with this murder: Ivor Bell, a former chief of staff on the IRA's army council, was charged last month with aiding and abetting the killing. And while Sinn Fein complained vociferously, it did not threatened to abandon its role in government over Bell's arrest. Adams is, of course, a much more visible figure, even if he is politically damaged. Outside observers used to allege that Sinn Fein's decisions were dictated by the IRA's army council. It will be interesting to observe what role the relicts of the IRA play in Sinn Fein's decision-making this time.
How will the Irish government react?


The Irish government will be concerned about maintaining political stability in Northern Ireland. It will not have any particular desire to help Gerry Adams, except insofar as it's necessary toward that end. First of all, Sinn Fein is a potent political threat to government parties in the Republic of Ireland, and was forecast to do well in the forthcoming local and European Parliament elections. Second, there has long been a hostile relationship between Fine Gael, the majority party in the Irish government, and Sinn Fein. The two parties have their origins in different sides on the Irish civil war; Fine Gael has always seen itself as the party of the Irish state and of law and order, while Sinn Fein until very recently saw itself as the sole true heir of an Irish republicanism that had been abandoned by southern Ireland. While the two parties have had to work together, because of Sinn Fein's role in power sharing in the Northern Ireland government, they do not like each other. Sinn Fein's presence as a political force on both sides of the border is usually a strength. This time around, it may be a liability.
How will this affect Sinn Fein's electoral prospects?
It will likely damage them in the Republic of Ireland. The McConville murder was one of the more sordid and brutal events of Northern Ireland's "Troubles." Although the IRA alleged that Jean McConville was an informer, others have suggested that her crime was merely to offer water to a wounded British soldier. Adams himself has described the murder as a "grievous injustice." Sinn Fein has worked quite successfully to reposition itself as an anti-economic austerity party, soft-pedaling its past connections to terrorism. This will remind voters that the past is not buried very deep. It is likely to have far less impact on likely Sinn Fein voters in Northern Ireland, who are effectively inured to past terrorist incidents.
What are the long term consequences for Irish politics?
If a broader crisis is averted, its most important consequence may be to rapidly accelerate a generational change in Sinn Fein. Younger politicians like Mary Lou McDonald, a member of the Irish Parliament, are better positioned to sell the party to Irish voters. Over the longer term, they may change Sinn Fein from a party dominated by its lingering association with terrorism to one with a broader left-wing agenda.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monk...ms-arrest/

One of the comment to the above article:

Quote:JIRL
2:27 PM EST


A poor quality of article. One must note few actual facts, but many opinions. For example, it states that "Sinn Fein ...hasn't sought to bury its past relationship with the IRA's terrorist campaign, but it hasn't heavily emphasized that association either.". As an Irish-based political pundit, I look at all the party conferences, and it was noteworthy that, in this election year, at the beginning of Adam's presidential address to the SF conference, on LIVE primetime tv, he commenced with commiserations to the relatives of a dead IRA man. All the executive of the party were in view as he did so.

There is also a lack of rigour that seems to show a bias. For example , in the article we read that "He has also been seriously damaged by the revelation last year that his brother, Liam Adams, sexually abused his 5-year-old daughter, and that he knew about the abuse in 2000 and didn't report it until 2009." Noted elsewhere in the comments, this is hardly reflective of the actual story, where he had actually said to his niece that she should go to the police. Furthermore, it merely reports what started out as a story seized upon, at a time when Adams was out-performing party leader in the polls, by members of the media closely associated with those political parties. It was an attempt at easy mudslinging in a country that had many authority figures brought low by sex abuse scandals. There are many things deserving criticism, but guilt by association looks rather skewed and unbalanced.
I think the story also overlooks a dynamic, that those more familiar with the situation would be aware of- this arrest follows immediately on a decision by the NI secretary not to pursue an Investigation of the killings in Ballymurphy carried out by the British Army. These were the killings that fuelled the hatred of the British army that lead to McConville abduction. This is being used by the anti-process groups to try undermine faith in the honesty of the British.

Quote:

Brendan Hughes: the IRA veteran who pointed the finger at Gerry Adams

Before his death in 2008, former friend claimed Sinn Féin leader ordered death of Jean McConville

• 
  

• Henry McDonald
  
  
• The Guardian, Friday 2 May 2014 07.06 AEST
  

Gerry Adams, right, helps carry the coffin of Brendan Hughes in west Belfast in 2008. Photograph: Peter Morrison/ap

Brendan "The Dark" Hughes was a legend within the IRA, rising to become the Provisionals' Belfast commander and leading the first hunger strike for political status in the Maze in 1980.
Once a close friend of Gerry Adams, he spent time in jail with the future Sinn Féin leader after the pair were interned in 1971.
The Falls Road republican who once sported a Sancho Panza moustache and swarthy complexion came out of prison a disillusioned man and became a bitter opponent of Sinn Féin's peace strategy, believing it would not deliver a united Ireland.
Before his death in 2008, Hughes gave an interview to the Boston College-Belfast Project history archive detailing his life in the IRA.
On tape he claimed his former friend Adams had ordered the death and disappearance of Jean McConville.
Hughes' testimony against the man he once shared a prison compound with in Long Kesh remains among the most damning of Adams. The Sinn Féin has always denied the claims.
Although cynical about the direction Sinn Féin took after the 1994 IRA ceasefire, Hughes was not personally in favour of a return to "armed struggle".
He also played a key part in preventing a shooting war between the IRA and the anti-ceasefire Real IRA in October 2000.
The IRA had shot dead dissident republican Joe O'Connor in west Belfast after a dispute in the Ballymurphy area. To prevent further bloodshed, Hughes used his influence and the respect he commanded among younger Real IRA members at O'Connor's funeral to persuade them to avoid getting into a murderous feud.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014...mcconville

Quote:

Gerry Adams arrest: Sinn Féin claims 'dark side' to NI police

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Martin McGuinness said the arrest of Gerry Adams was an attempt to influence the outcome of the elections

Continue reading the main story

The Disappeared

• Who was Jean McConville?
  
• Son says he knows mother's killers
  
• What are the Boston tapes?
  
• Profile: Gerry Adams
  

Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness has claimed Gerry Adams' arrest is due to a "dark side" within policing conspiring with enemies of the peace process.
He added that the detention was a "deliberate attempt to influence the outcome of elections" in three weeks.
Mr Adams is being questioned about the 1972 murder of Jean McConville but has denied involvement in her death.
Prime Minister David Cameron said there had been "absolutely no political interference in this issue".
Mr Cameron spoke to Northern Ireland's first and deputy first ministers on Thursday night.
It is understood he reiterated his view that the arrest was a matter for the police.
Northern Ireland First Minister Peter Robinson said earlier that it would be "political policing" if Mr Adams was not questioned.
Continue reading the main story

Questioning time

• Gerry Adams was arrested at 20:00 BST on Wednesday under the Terrorism Act 2000
  
• Under the terms of that act, a suspect can be held for a maximum of 28 days before being charged
  
• After the first 24 hours has passed, the police can extend questioning for a further 24 hours if a superintendent says there are sufficient grounds to do so
  
• However, if a suspect has been held for 48 hours the police then have to go to court to seek an extension of the length of time he or she can continue to be held.
  
• In the case of Gerry Adams, he could be held until 20:00 BST on Friday before a judge would have to rule on whether he could be held for a further period.
  

'Dark side' The Sinn Féin president remains in custody after presenting himself at Antrim police station on Wednesday evening.
Mr McGuinness, Northern Ireland's Deputy First Minister, told a press conference at Stormont that the arrest of his party leader and "friend" was politically motivated.
He claimed Sinn Féin had been told by "senior" and "reforming" figures within the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) that "there was still a dark side within policing here in the north of Ireland".
"I think we have seen that dark side flex its muscles in the course of the last couple of days," he added.
"We know who they are. The reformers know who they are," Mr McGuinness told reporters.
'In consort' He said some former republicans who were "maliciously and vehemently hostile to the peace process" had been targeting Mr Adams and the Sinn Féin peace strategy for a considerable period of time.
"It is quite disappointing to see the efforts of those people now in consort with the dark side within policing," Mr McGuinness said.
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Speaking to Irish broadcaster RTE before his arrest, Mr Adams said he was "innocent of any part" in the murder of Mrs McConville

However, Mr Robinson said the arrest was proof that no-one in Northern Ireland was above the law.
"Is anybody going to say to me that if the police are aware of claims and evidence in relation to such a barbaric killing that it would be political policing for them to question those who have been suggested to have been involved?
"I would suggest to you that it would be political policing if the PSNI had not questioned those that were deemed to have been involved in any way," the DUP leader said.
"I cannot say whether Mr Adams will be charged or released, whether he will be held for a further period, whether even if charged he might be convicted .
"But what I can say is that it strengthens our political process in Northern Ireland for people to know that no-one is above the law - everyone is equal under the law and everyone is equally subject to the law."
In a statement, a PSNI spokesman said: "Police have a duty to impartially investigate serious crime including murder.
"It is the police's duty to make relevant enquiries, interview those with information, arrest and question suspects and, in consultation with the Public Prosecution Service (PPS), to either charge or submit a file to the PPS in relation to the investigation.
"This procedure is being followed in this case. As one individual has been charged with serious offences and files are being prepared in relation to other individuals, it would be inappropriate to comment further other than to reiterate the Police Service's commitment to treat everyone equally before the law."
Jean McConville, a widowed mother-of-10, was abducted and murdered by the IRA in December 1972
Speaking before his detention on Wednesday evening, Mr Adams said he was "innocent of any part" in the murder.
"I believe that the killing of Jean McConville and the secret burial of her body was wrong and a grievous injustice to her and her family," he added.
Mrs McConville, a 37-year-old widow and mother-of-10, was abducted and shot by the IRA.
Her body was recovered from a beach in County Louth in 2003.
Wrongly accused Mrs McConville's son Michael, who was 11 when his mother was murdered, welcomed the arrest.
"We're just happy to see everything moving as it is moving at the minute," he said.
"Me and the rest of my brothers and sisters are just glad to see the PSNI doing their job. We didn't think it would ever take place [Mr Adams' arrest], but we are quite glad that it is taking place."
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A BBC reporter spoke to Jean McConville's children who describe what happened the night their mother disappeared

Mrs McConville, one of Northern Ireland's Disappeared, was kidnapped in front of her children after being wrongly accused of being an informer.
The claim that she was an informer was dismissed after an official investigation by the Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman.
The widow was held at one or more houses before being shot and buried in secret.
The Disappeared are those who were abducted, murdered and secretly buried by republicans during the Troubles.
The IRA admitted in 1999 that it murdered and buried at secret locations nine of the Disappeared.
The Independent Commission for the Location of Victims' Remains was established in 1999 by a treaty between the British and Irish governments.
It lists 16 people as "disappeared". Despite extensive searches, the remains of seven of them have not been found.
Jean McConville's remains were found in 2003 by a man walking at Shelling Hill beach, near Carlingford.
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Former IRA member Brendan Hughes told Boston College that Mr Adams was responsible for Mrs McConville's death. The Sinn Féin leader says this is a lie

Last month, Ivor Bell, 77, a leader in the Provisional IRA in the 1970s, was charged with aiding and abetting the murder.
There have also been a number of other arrests over the murder recently.
Mr Adams has never been charged with membership of the IRA.
He was, however, interned in 1972 under the controversial Special Powers Act, but briefly released in order that he could take part in talks in London between representatives of Sinn Fein and the then Home Secretary Willie Whitelaw.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-27244878

Gerry Adams' arrest marks the end of his career in the south

Just days ago Adams was the Irish Republic's most popular leader but the other big parties won't go into office with him now

• • Malachi O'Doherty
    
    
  • The Guardian, Friday 2 May 2014 05.23 AEST
    
  • Jump to comments (258)
    

Gerry Adams. 'The majority of the Sinn Féin support base [will not be daunted] if it emerges that he has blood on his hands.' Photograph: Peter Muhly/AFP/Getty Images

We can be confident that Gerry Adams has not been sitting in his cell chewing on self-doubt. The president of Sinn Féin, who was arrested this week in connection with the 1972 kidnapping, murder and burial of widowed mother-of-10 Jean McConville, has been the target of opprobrium for more than 40 years and has shown himself impervious to it.
He has been imprisoned and shot, and reviled in the media but has come through all that stoically. When charged with trying to escape from internment in 1974, he sat darning his socks and ignoring proceedings.
Adams knows that he is widely loved by those who supported the IRA through its worst days. Those who were going to desert him in horror over the past have already done so. He has already been through a redemption, if not in his own heart then certainly in the minds of Irish people. What he did before giving up the armed struggle is not considered relevant.
Adams has many times held his nerve and maintained his course when others said he was a murderer, the defender of a child abuser that is, of his convicted brother Liam and when journalists harangued him about bombings in which innocents died.
This is a man who doesn't do doubt. This time the party line is that his arrest was politically motivated; that with elections coming in three weeks, this is a way to tarnish Sinn Féin.
North of the border people who vote Sinn Féin are of two types. There are those who supported the IRA and believe the campaign was a good thing. They aren't going to be affected by his arrest; there is nothing for them to be disillusioned about. Then there are republican critics of Adams, who accuse him of selling out for a career. They will be quietly glad he is in difficulty now.
But the major part of the Sinn Féin support base, which is now most of the nationalist community, maintains it loyalty to the party and Gerry Adams as a reward for peacemaking. It wouldn't daunt them were it to emerge that he has blood on his hands; they like him because they know he made war and credit him with having changed.
True, most nationalists rejected the IRA during its armed campaign and voted instead for the SDLP which opposed violent revolution. But those distinctions are dissolving. Last month Clonard monastery in west Belfast held a mass for "the patriot dead", bringing together families of dead IRA bombers and killers. That's how respectable a past in the IRA has become.
Where Adams can suffer is in the Irish Republic. He shifted his political base there and took a seat in the Dublin parliament, the Dáil. For years his party has relentlessly increased its support, yet its northern and southern expressions are growing apart. One irony, if he fell, might be that Sinn Féin would be partitioned, effectively evidence that partition is organic and inevitable in Ireland.
Adams, just a few days ago, was the most popular political leader in the south. And some there will detect machinations behind the decision to arrest him.
But it is not only public opinion that matters. The prospect of political power in the south depends on coalition with at least one of the other big parties. And the leaders of Labour, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil will be squeamish about going into office with, deputising or being deputised by, a man who was a suspect in McConville's horrific murder.
Therefore Adams's southern political ambitions are now dead, whatever happens next. The hard part might be getting such a resilient and impervious man to believe that.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree...of-ireland

Other murders 40 years ago and no investigation or arrests.

Calls for independent reviews into two incidents in the Troubles in which 23 people died have been ruled out by Secretary of State Theresa Villiers.

Ms Villiers sent letters to relatives of the 12 people killed in the La Mon bombing in 1978 and relatives of 11 people who died in Ballymurphy in 1971.

The secretary of state said she did not believe reviews would uncover evidence not already in the public domain.

She said she knew this was not what the families wanted to hear.

Ten people were shot dead by the parachute regiment in Ballymurphy, west Belfast, in August 1971, while an 11th person died of a heart attack after allegedly confronting soldiers.

Twelve members of the Irish Collie Club were killed in the La Mon House Hotel in 1978 in an IRA firebomb attack.

Relatives wanted a review of the police investigation into the bombing.

Regarding her statement about Ballymurphy, Ms Villiers said: "In reaching this decision, I have sought to balance the strong and clear views of the families with the need to ensure that existing legal mechanisms can continue to carry out their functions without being impeded by an additional process."

Speaking about La Mon she said: "I understand that this is not the decision they were hoping for, but I do not believe that an independent review would reveal new evidence or reach a different conclusion from the investigations that have already taken place."

'Slap in the face'
Andrea Nelson was 14 when her parents Paul and Dorothy were murdered in the La Mon bomb.

She said she wanted justice for them.

"Ideally it would be good if people could be brought to court in Northern Ireland - why don't we have the justice that we deserve?" she said.

"That might not be possible, there might not be the level of evidence, but to simply say there's not going to be that further investigation is a slap in the face for victims of that night.

"To say that we're not important enough to have that level of scrutiny that other families have had from other atrocities, just makes us believe that we are the forgotten victims, the La Mon victims, and that we've simply been put in the 'far too difficult to do box'."

Ivor Bell: A leading Provo and ceasefire talks negotiator who ultimately fell out with his terrorist comrades



Ivor Bell in 1983 when he was released after Supergrass, Robert Lean, withdrew evidence against 11 men


By Chris Kilpatrick 19 March 2014
More than four decades may have passed, but the horror and revulsion at the IRA execution and disappearance of Jean McConville has not diminshed with time.

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The widowed mother-of-10 was abducted, killed and secretly buried by republican paramilitaries in 1972.
Mrs McConville was murdered for simply showing an act of kindness to a British soldier, placing a pillow below his head as he lay wounded outside her home at west Belfast's Divis flats.
Members of the IRA disputed that, claiming their helpless victim was targeted for acting as an informer.
A gang of 12 eight men and four women are believed to have been involved in the abduction.
Her orphaned children were aged between six and 16. Their father had died previously from cancer.
Mrs McConville's remains were finally found at Shelling Hill beach in Co Louth in August 2003.
Four years earlier, the IRA had given the wrong location. They had said she was buried about half a mile away at Templetown Beach and two massive digs subsequently took place in the summers of 1999 and 2000.
A former IRA boss claimed Gerry Adams had ordered her murder, but the Sinn Fein president has consistently argued that he had nothing to do with the young mother's death.
In 2010, journalist Ed Moloney's book, Voices From The Grave, contained information on the accounts of former IRA commander, Brendan Hughes, who told his story to Boston College on the agreement it would not be published until after his death.
Hughes, Adams and Ivor Bell formed a trio which ousted the old guard of the Provisonal leadership in the early 1970s, it was claimed.
Hughes was aware of how Mrs McConville had been 'arrested' twice by the IRA, before finally being disappeared.
It was through Ivor Bell he heard the final confirmation, Hughes alleged, that Gerry Adams had ordered the secret burial of her body.
Hughes' claims were backed up by Dolours Price, another IRA veteran.
Before her death, she told a newspaper that she had given an account of the incident to Boston College.
After this, PSNI officers investigating Mrs McConville's murder took legal action to secure the tapes.
Last year, Gerry Adams accused former colleague Hughes of "telling lies" in claiming that the Sinn Fein president had ordered the disappearance and execution of Mrs McConville. "I had no act or part to play in either the abduction, the killing or burial of Jean McConville, or indeed any of these other people," he told a TV programme.
Bell widely reported to be a commander in the Provisionals' Belfast Brigade was said to have been ejected from the IRA in the 1980s, as he was opposed to running down the organisation and moving the republican campaign from the Armalite to the ballot box.
In 1972, Bell had been involved in secret ceasefire talks and was part of a republican delegation which flew to London.
He was jailed in the 1970s and escaped from the Maze briefly, after pretending to be another prisoner granted parole to get married. He was sentenced to three further years in custody as a result.
He received another two-year prison term for trying to help Gerry Adams escape from the same prison.
In 1983 he was charged with membership of the IRA and other terror offences.
He walked free, along with 10 other defendants, after supergrass Robert Lean withdrew his evidence.
Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness previously urged anybody with information about undiscovered remains of the Disappeared to pass it to the authorities.
His said the torture endured by the families was a "wound that must not be left to fester".
One of Mrs McConville's children, Helen McKendry, who was 15 when her mother was abducted, recently vowed to continue the fight to see those responsible brought to justice. "I will campaign on this until the day I die until I get to the truth," she said.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/l...05016.html

Another possibility.....someone* wants to restart the 'troubles'....which would [almost everyone concedes] follow if Adams is tried and convicted.

*Now who would want that?!...and be willing to provide secret [or false] information about Adams to the UK Police

Certainly a possibility the peace process will come undone. Who would benefit from that? Since the immunity to all players that was offered and now seems to have gone by the wayside. No investigation into any British state crimes in the area. They are still off bounds. Will Sinn Fein actually do any thing about this? They must have quite a few cards up their sleeve on that alone. They are the most popular political party in Ireland at the moment and other parties need to include them in a coalition given how on the nose most of them are after shafting the Irish people with austerity and protecting the bankers. Their policies are good socially. What other party is going to want to be seen with Sinn Fein now?