Is this promotion or the opposite for Gerry Adams? The man gives up being president of Sinn Féin after 35 years, stays mostly out of his successor’s way as far as the outside world can tell, and how does she reward him? She gives him the portfolio marked ‘Irish unity’.
RTE reported the new title as ‘heading up Sinn Féin's ambition of achieving Irish unity.’
Take that, Gerry. Although wait a minute, isn’t the ‘unity project’ supposed to now top the party agenda? That would make the fresh Adams responsibility a compliment to him, a project worthy of a skilled operator, although clearly it comes with more than a few problems attached.
The Mary Lou McDonald reshuffle of senior colleagues last week follows demoralising election results. She has had a tough year and a bit. Delightedly, enemies north, south and perhaps inside the camp decided months back that she had lost her shine. That followed an equally widespread judgment that in time the McDonald poise and polish might overcome southern distaste, that she might do much better than Adams. It could still happen, but she has not won the Republic’s voters yet.
Whether or not Adams as leader for a post-war era was hobbled by his own past, and whether or not having him as figurehead eventually did damage is not that clear. The mark of the IRA on Sinn Féin has probably had less impact on its fortunes than the state’s own fortunes. Winning protest votes as recession struck and jobs disappeared was always likely to fizzle and stall when the recovery failed to deliver decent housing and health services. As another boom develops, feeding fears of another crash, and as Fianna Fáil’s recovery buries SF illusions of becoming a central player, this generation of republicans now have to get ahead of whatever comes next.
The north is in a category of its own, painted ship upon painted ocean, no wind in the sails at Stormont, perhaps even recognised as such behind closed Sinn Féin doors. It was her Oireachtas team that the McDonald reshuffle had to refresh. Was it just a little insensitive to leave the oldies to the end of the list? So the line-up as she published it read Dessie Ellis, Drug addiction, Martin Ferris, Fisheries and the Marine, Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin, Disability and Older People before, last but not least, Gerry Adams, Irish Unity.
Watching Adams trundle through Dáil questions as presented on his own twitter-feed is heavy going. (Pictures of roses in his garden provide light relief.) McDonald may have made her changes after respectful discussion with her revered predecessor. Or not. Nobody could be insulted to be put in charge of the age-old dream. Nobody younger and sharper could be spared, is the other way to look at it.
The old dog for the hard road of Project Unity will need all the back-up the party can spare. Unless, of course, this is the most economical of window-dressing and the new programme is meant to manage expectations further downward while beaming optimism with all the Adams well-worn folksiness. This is a veteran who already phased out an earlier republican programme, after all, in recognition that the IRA was never going to unite the island.
Time marches on, though sometimes it sits with its head in its hands by the side of the road. Adams led people into politics by proposing a peaceful transition towards a united Ireland. If he is to be spokesperson on unity because nobody else wants the job, now there’s a thing. That would mean today’s Sinn Féin have decided unity is beyond them.
As he moves further into his 70s (71st birthday this October) his latest job may be the greatest trial yet for Gerry Adams of his stamina and stubbornness. But the world outside republicanism is likely to hear instead about GAA excitement and see close-ups of fine roses.
