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Why
hasn't Gerry Adams been given the Nobel peace prize?
It was given to Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williams
and to John Hume and David Trimble. Alas the prize
and its booty have eluded Gerry. It is said that the
war is over when the die hards tell their stories.
Recently two of our very own die hards have published
their dramatic stories. Gerry Adams' Hope and History
- Making Peace in Ireland and Alex Maskeys' Man
and Mayor.
Adams' book virtually begins with a shoot out. After
being elected Gerry is trying to calm a melee, when
himself, Sean Keenan and Bob Murray are arrested on
the trumped up charge of obstruction. They are ordered
to appear at Belfast Magistrates' court on Wed. 14
March 1984. Gerry is uneasy about going to court.
He has been living underground and is ill at ease
in the city centre. He has a feeling of impending
danger and his antenna is screaming 'danger! danger!'
Their case cannot be heard until after lunch, so they
organise Kevin Rooney to pick them up. Outside the
court they get into Rooney's car with Gerry in the
front passenger seat. On their way to Longs for chips,
Gerry's antenna is still screaming. Going past the
back of the City Hall their car is hit by gunfire.
The windows smash, the bullets hit home and everything
goes in to slow motion. Five bullets hit Gerry, but
they manage to get to the Royal hospital and get sorted
out. Gerry goes off to the Inis Eoghan peninsula for
some R and R, with his main gripe about the attack
being that he fails to get compensation as he is forced
to withdraw his claim. He doesn't tell us what happened
to the trumped up charge however.
Now Gerry doesn't tell us in his book, but Alex tells
us in his, that it is John Gregg who shot Adams, and
now Alex's brother Liam - a community worker in North
Belfast - wants to meet Gregg. The peace process is
unstable and hero Liam has been meeting loyalist sources
since the autumn of 2001. These meetings are under
the watchful eye of the establishment and police under
cover units. The meetings are set up by John White
and some members of the P.U.P. Liam, however, is warned
by his reliable source in the establishment not to
go to the meeting with Gregg as it is a set up and
he won't be coming back. After this failed attempt
another meeting is set up for Liam to meet Johnny
Adair, the man who boasted of trying to shoot Liam's
brother Alex. Adair and Liam are to meet at Liam's
offices on the Antrim Road near to the police station
where Liam feels safe, but Adair will not travel up
the mainly nationalist Antrim Road. Therefore, Liam
and another Catholic travel in to Johnny's territory
for the meeting, which is held in a disused house
in Boundary Way. Eventually, they meet for face-to
face talks.
Now need Liam have worried about meeting Adair?
David Lister and Hugh Jordan write about Adair in
their book, 'Mad Dog - The Rise and Fall of Johnny
Adair and C Company'. They tell us that our die
hard Johnny is all boast and no bottle. Johnny, they
say, boasts of killing more than a dozen taigs, but
the only man he allegedly killed was Noel Cardwell.
Cardwell was a suspected informer who was 26 but had
a mental age of 12. They also tell of a meeting with
the U.D.A.'s six brigadiers and Adair is given a gun
with which to execute his colleagues, but he loses
his bottle. They claim that die hard Johnny is bi-sexual
and has had a homosexual affair with a fellow U.D.A.
man. Perhaps then there is some substance to the joke
- have you heard about the mirror with six holes in
it? Johnny Adair tried to shoot himself.
Alex need not have worried about Liam's safety, as
he was under the watchful eye of some very well informed
spooks. Although Alex could have warned Liam to keep
his back to the wall. So far that is the end of the
die hard story, for the die hards have died and have
been metamorphosed in to peace makers. Adair and White
are peace makers, Liam the community worker is a peace
maker, and then there is Gerry and his merry bunch
of peace makers. Or are they just die hards who have
become repentant fenian bastards!
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