THERE are some subjects on which Gerry Adams would score highly on Mastermind. The activities of the Belfast Brigade in the 1970s, for example.
hen there are topics, such as economics, about which he is manifestly less knowledgeable. It's worth wondering how much better the "No" campaign might be doing if it didn't have Sinn Fein heading it up. For every voter persuaded by the fiery anti-austerity rhetoric, there must be at least three who, whilst unconvinced by the fiscal treaty, run screaming at the prospect of Adams & co being the alternative.
Another area about which Gerry Adams can be said to know little is Christian ethics, though he wastes no time in constantly reminding interviewers that he is a practising Catholic -- and here's hoping he keeps practising and finally gets the hang of the Fifth Commandment one day, sufficient to explain it to his erstwhile colleagues. It didn't stop him throwing his oar into the debate about Cardinal Brady's role in the investigation of clerical abuse last week.
Adams did admit that he was unsure about the wisdom of politicians poking their noses into the internal affairs of the church, but then he jabbed his proboscis in anyway, by saying that Cardinal Brady should, in that tiresome cliche, "reflect" on his position.
Though what if, after considering his position, Brady concludes that it is no less tenable than the Sinn Fein leader's own? Adams, alas, did not say.
Gerry could hardly cast the first stone. Not simply because of his involvement in IRA violence, well documented though that is. Car bombs. No-warning bombs. Human bombs. A string of shootings just to stop the glorious struggle from getting dull.
The IRA carried out its own special form of abuse on innocent people for three decades, and Adams clearly considers it no obstacle to his involvement in public life. As for reflecting on the lessons of the past, if only that was so. His various memoirs bear fewer signs of meaningful reflection than the Irish Sea bears the indent of the last raindrop.
Of course, he's not unique in that. Martin McGuinness, last year's "Man Who Would Be President", boasts the same bloody credentials. His response is equally bare-faced. Petulant when questioned. Dismissive when caught out. Yet he too has added his voice to the chorus calling for Cardinal Brady to consider his position for not passing on information about child abuse to the police in 1975.
These being the same policemen that the IRA was murdering in 1975; the same policemen that many ordinary Catholics were punished brutally for "collaborating" with if they dared report wrongdoing. The message in the North was clear in the 1970s. You didn't report crime to the police because the RUC was an "illegitimate" force. End of story. Adams and McGuinness helped enforce that injunction. Cardinal Brady was an amateur by comparison.
It's the hypocrisy of Adams which stands out most sickeningly. Brady conducted a very imperfect and disturbing investigation into sexual abuse by Fr Brendan Smyth. He then passed the matter on to his superiors and, to all intents and purposes, forgot about it. He didn't have Fr Smyth around as a reminder of his crimes, because he had never met the man, and didn't subsequently either.
Gerry Adams's experience of abuse was much closer to home. When she was only 14 -- the same age as Brendan Boland when he was sworn to silence by Cardinal Brady -- Adams's niece, Aine Tyrell, came to her uncle and told how his brother had been sexually abusing her from the age of four. Adams said he believed her from the start, but nothing was done about Liam Adams. Ms Tyrell has claimed she was willing to forego her anonymity, but Mr Adams was apparently concerned with the effect the publicity would have on the young woman. The police were not informed at the time. There was no apparent attempt to investigate the possibility of other victims.
Liam was simply dispatched away quietly, just as the church dealt with paedophile priests, and did not face justice until December 2009 when he handed himself in to guards in Sligo and was subsequently extradited back North to face charges..
At that time, Gerry Adams also chose to reveal that his own father had sexually and physically abused his children over a long period. Again, not only was nothing reported or done about it, but Adams Snr was accorded a full republican funeral with honours in Belfast when he died at the age of 77 in 2003.
The Sinn Fein leader's excuse when all this came out was that none of the victims wanted the abuse to be reported, and that the crimes were "historic" so no children were at current risk. If that sounds like the same excuse which the church makes for its own inaction, that's because it is.
Cardinal Brady never saw Fr Smyth or his victims again. Adams was surrounded by reminders in his own family. Many people would baulk before reporting a member of their own family to the police, especially in Ireland, where blood ties have been allowed to take on an often unhealthy importance in the culture.
But, by the same token, a man who himself is far from perfect should refrain from lecturing others about their failings, especially when he wrote so glowingly about his father in his memoirs, despite knowing of the abuse.
All this raises the question of what Sinn Fein in the Republic thinks it gains from having Gerry Adams as leader. Murder and child abuse are the two most heinous crimes imaginable. Their leader is linked, by association to one, and, like the then Fr Brady, by a failure to report, to the other. Cardinal Brady says he told his superiors but they did nothing. Gerry Adams says he told a Belfast Youth Project, but it says it has no record to corroborate that.
Impressive and articulate TDs such as Mary Lou McDonald, Pearse Doherty and Peadar Toibin have been reduced to bit players in the vanity project of ex-terrorists who have been at the head of their organisation for longer than any other political or religious leader, save for Third World dictators.
Does no one ever suggest to them that it may be time to step aside, for the good of party and country alike?
Adams is one of the few leaders in Irish politics who is unable to claim moral superiority over those who caused the economic crash. That's some achievement. He couldn't even utter the words "money laundering" in the Dail last week without provoking mocking laughter and catcalls about the IRA Northern Bank raid. He has liability written all over him.
If the "No" side narrowly loses the fiscal treaty vote in three weeks' time, many will surely question the wisdom of letting a damaged and discredited man with little grasp of European politics and economics head the campaign.
