Overview
Born in West Belfast in 1948 into a family with close ties to both the trade union and republican movements, Gerry Adams is the eldest of ten children. He writes with affection of his mother, "an articulate and gentle woman," of his father, a republican activist who had been jailed at the age of sixteen, and of his grandmother, who nurtured in him a love of reading. He describes his childhood, despite its material poverty, in glowing and humorous terms, recollecting golden hours spent playing on the slopes of the mountain behind his home and celebrating the intimate sense of community in the tightly packed streets of working-class West Belfast. But even before leaving school to work as a barman, he had become aware of the inequities and inequalities of life in the north of Ireland. Soon he was engaged in direct action on the issues of housing, unemployment, and civil rights. Gerry Adams brings a unique perspective to the years of conflict, insurrection, and bitter struggle that ensued when, in his view, peaceful political agitation was met with hysterical reaction, and the sectarian tinder-box of Britain's last colony erupted. From the pogroms of 1969 to the hunger strikes of 1981, from the streets of West Belfast to the cages of Long Kesh, this powerful memoir is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand modern Ireland.Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
Adams was born in Belfast in 1948 into a devoutly Republican family. He fondly remembers growing up poor in a loving household that included nine brothers and sisters (three siblings died in infancy). He recalls being told the "facts of life" by his father: "...keep [your] wee man clean and stay away from bad women." He also reminisces about how crucial the pawnshop was to the family's survival and gives a hilarious rendition of his first Communion. After completing secondary school during the mid-'60s, Adams worked in a pub and was politicized by the Catholic civil rights marches in Belfast. He blames much of the problems in the north on the former Six Counties Stormont government, which he says had "a supremacist credo similar to South Africa's apartheid system." He points out that "pogroms" and gerrymandering have had a devastating effect on the Catholic population of Northern Ireland. He discusses the beginning of the Stormont government policy of internment without trial in 1971 and his own imprisonment on three occasions for IRA activity. He has high praise for President Clinton's pressure on the British government in the peace talks, while he blasts former Irish minister Conor Cruise O'Brien for his "McCarthyite" tactics. Except for a mention in a brief epilogue, readers looking for revelations about the peace process in Northern Ireland will be disappointed, because the book ends after the IRA hunger strikes in 1981. It is arguably, however, a definitive history of the Irish struggles of the 1970s, from the nationalist point of view. Adams, a fine writer, presents a straightforward, unapologetic memoir. (Feb.)Library Journal
The controversial Sinn Fein leader comes clean in this autobiography.Kirkus Reviews
In this compelling memoir of his early life, the president of Sinn Féin, the political wing of the IRA, recalls the development of the modern "Troubles" in Northern Ireland and his own central role in them, culminating in the tragic hunger strike by incarcerated IRA members in 1981.Born in 1948, Adams vividly recalls the Belfast of his early life as a coldly sectarian place. It was polarized between the loyalist majority, many of whose members belonged to anti-Catholic organizations like the Orange Order, and impoverished Catholics, who were unable to speak freely, were not allowed the right to display nationalist symbols, and were often denied equal opportunity in housing and employment. Adams traces his growing political consciousness to routine events in Northern Ireland: The annual parades of unionists on July 12, the banning of republican activities, and the activities of violent unionist paramilitary organizations like the B Specials. Dissatisfaction over a lack of democracy found expression in protests over grim state-sponsored housing units and the banning of nationalist parades. The unionist forces reacted violently, and the situation exploded into civil war. Adams describes his growing radicalization, his leadership role in the political wing of the IRA, and the British use of secret courts to convict republicans. Adams was himself a political prisoner, one of the first in the infamous Long Kesh, and underwent torture at the hands of the British authorities, which he describes graphically. Adams concludes his account by recording the dramatic hunger strikes of Bobby Sands and others in 198081, which he initially resisted but which he now recognizes as having revitalized the nationalist movement. Adams was elected a British MP in 1983, part of a pattern of Sinn Féin electoral success that resulted in the recent Anglo-Irish agreement.
An eloquent and persuasive presentation of recent Irish history.