Adams, McGuinness speak of unity by 2016

By Susan Falvella-Garraty and Ray O’Hanlon

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Gerry Adams has been Sinn Féin president for years and is clearly very comfortable with it. Martin McGuinness has been a minister for a few weeks and looks equally comfortable with it.

President Adams and Minister McGuinness led a Sinn Féin delegation to the U.S. last week that also included the party’s sole representative in the Dáil, Caoimhghín O Caoláin.

But the group’s message was more singular than sole. Nothing short of a united Ireland by 2016, the 100th anniversary of the 1916 Rising, would now suffice for Sinn Féin.

If the dream of centuries did not come about by that time, Adams told a rally in New York, "we would have only ourselves to blame."

Current concerns such as weapons decommissioning crept in from the wings repeatedly during the three days of business on American soil. But the delegation would not be distracted. "Gerry Adams predicts a united Ireland," was the headline over the visit’s primary press release.

The overall purpose of the visit was more political and financial. There was virtually no fund-raising. Along the way, Adams met with President Clinton and McGuinness met with his now U.S. counterpart, Education Secretary Richard Riley.

Clinton and Adams met in the Oval Office last Wednesday afternoon. Concern over the fragile peace process and threats of a resurgence in violence by loyalists and the dissident Real IRA was underscored by the attendance of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Clinton’s national security advisor, Sandy Berger.

After the 45-minute meeting, Adams told reporters in the driveway in front of the White House that while he understood Ulster Unionist Party leader David Trimble’s political necessity to coax along his party members into an agreement on decommissioning, Sinn Féin was not going to stand in fear of threats of a walk out if the IRA does not decommission weapons by the end of this month.

"Trimble has to lead his party, and to be true to the Good Friday agreement in so doing," Adams said. "And I look to David Trimble to be leaderly about all of these matters. Deadlines and ultimatums have not anywhere in the world worked to get peace processes to come to democratic conclusions."

The White House said it was Adams who requested the meeting with the president. The previous Tuesday, Clinton telephoned British Prime Minister Tony Blair to discuss the situation in the North. The president had met with the North’s first minister, Trimble at the White House last month.

"I see no reason why that progress can’t continue," said Adams, although he quickly cautioned, "but we have a lot of distance to cover, a lot of difficulties to overcome."

Adams chose to highlight the issues of demilitarization and this week’s release of the Patten Commission’s final report rather than decommissioning. Asked whether the White House had pressed him for a "symbolic action on decommissioning," Mr. Adams told reporters: "It was not that kind of a discussion."

White House spokesman Mike Hammer said decommissioning was discussed at the meeting as were all other aspects of implementing the Good Friday accord.

On Friday, McGuinness had a historic meeting with his U.S. counterpart. Minister McGuinness’ meeting with Riley was the first time a Sinn Féin representative conducted meetings with American government officials as a government official since Eamon de Valera did so during his post 1916-rising visit to the U.S.

"I am pleased to welcome Martin McGuinness to the department in his new role as minister for education," Riley said after the meeting. "I have had the good fortune to visit Northern Ireland on several occasions and I know the people of Northern Ireland care deeply about improving education."

The meeting between the secretary and the minister culminated a series of briefings between the minister’s policy advisors and senior staff at the department on a wide range of issues. They included preschool programs, education technology, special education, improving academic achievement in high poverty areas, curriculum reform, and school modernization.

In New York

On Thursday, the Sinn Féin trio held a press conference in New York. Again, Adams refused to be tied down on the issue of decommissioning despite repeated questions by a TV reporter in particular. "We have done OK," was Adams’s bottom line on the issue.

O Caoláin outlined Sinn Féin’s ambition on both sides of the border, at least for as long as it lasted. It was the party’s intent, he said, to sweep aside the stale and staid politics of the island.

Sinn Féin, he added, stood for nothing short of the total transformation of political life on both sides of the border and he was looking forward to being only one member of a Sinn Féin team of TDs in the next Dáil.

His party leader, however, would not be part of the team. Adams dismissed speculation that he was considering running for a Dáil seat, in Louth or anywhere else. He would only ever sit in a 32-County Dáil.

At the same time, Adams took a south-of-the-border swipe, pouring scorn on the recent Fianna Fáil budget. Addressing speculation that Sinn Féin might join a future coalition with Fianna Fáil, Adams said: "How could Sinn Féin be part of a coalition with a budget like that?"

On Thursday evening, with the temperature plunging outside, more than 500 people packed into a union hall on Manhattan’s West Side to hear Adams, McGuinness and the party’s U.S. representative, Rita O’Hare, spell out the Sinn Féin’s plans for the months and years ahead.

Speaking at the same podium where Martin Luther King once delivered a speech, Adams said looking back it was obvious that the Irish had been doing something wrong. When India and African nations gained independence they cited Pearse and Connolly. Why did they have freedom and the Irish did not, he asked his audience.

But as Sinn Féin graduated to an all-Ireland government "there is no reason why we can’t celebrate the 1916 Rising in the year 2016 in a free and united Ireland," he said to thunderous applause.

— Patrick Markey contributed to this story