© Getty Images / Charles McQuillan
Gerry Adams with a supporter's baby at a rally called in support of the former Sinn Fein President on July 16, 2018 in Belfast, Northern Ireland
Gerry Adams with a supporter's baby at a rally called in support of the former Sinn Fein President on July 16, 2018 in Belfast, Northern Ireland
You'd be sadly mistaken if you presumed Gerry Adams' historic legal victory on Wednesday will make much difference in the grand scheme of things.
The former Sinn Fein president has had two convictions for attempted escapes from the Maze Prison in 1973 and 1974 - which saw an additional four and a half years added to his sentences - quashed by the Supreme Court. It deemed the original detention "unlawful" because his intern[ment] without trial had not been "considered personally" by the then-Northern Ireland Secretary, Willie Whitelaw.
Perhaps it would be a very different narrative today if the British government had accepted liability of their own volition, but they allowed Adams' case to drag on for 10 years.
And they themselves had to be dragged - almost kicking and screaming, just like when Adams himself was illegally interned - into their highest court in the land, before five judges who ruled in favour of the Irishman.
Comment: Gerry Adams won his war with the UK deep state when his (former - he's retired now) Sinn Fein party became the most powerful pilitical party in both the North and South of Ireland in February this year.
Alas, Covid-1984 intervened, and Ireland is now ruled by a technocratic 'emergency' govt that keeps Sinn Fein out of power - and will likely do so until civilization falls apart.