The Beatification of Gerry Adams

Jay pointed out this good article by Fintan O’Toole on how Gerry Adams is being transformed into a man for all seasons, who is sometimes moved to tears by “good music or a happy memory,” has given up Guinness beer in favor of red wine, loves dogs, and has a special affinity with trees. Easily the most cunning politician in Ireland, he has succeeded despite bad teeth and worse press. At one point, the media represented him as the equivalent of Osama Bin Laden in Britain and Ireland, but now “Uncle Gerry” makes the cover of VIP as a sweet, avuncular figure, full of the self-confidence of calm middle age but with a gloss of New Age mysticism to keep him in touch with his inner child. When I lived in IRA-controlled projects, he would occasionally visit with “The Boys” to check on the state of their territories, and was a suitably pleasant conversationalist as only politicians can be. Later, I found out that back in the 1970s on the Falls Road he’d threatened the journalist Jack Holland, the father of one of my roomates, with extreme unpleasantness if he continued to publish unflattering material about Gerry and The Boys. It seems that as well as being cunning, it pays PR dividends for politicians to possess terminal spin meisters.