In the wake of the Coronavirus crisis that highlighted yet again the linked day-to-day reality of life on the island of Ireland, Gerry Adams considers how the pandemic threw into sharp relief the need to stay focused on the campaign for a United Ireland. In this ‘decade of opportunity’ Adams tracks the actions and planning that brought us to this point, from ‘A Scenario for Peace’ in 1987, the 1998 Good Friday Agreement to Sinn Féin’s 2005 ‘Green Paper on Irish Unity’, so that now the issue of a referendum on unity is centre stage.
Referendum on Irish Unity is achievable and winnable BY GERRY ADAMS Republicans understand the challenges and difficulties created by Brexit and Covid-19. Each of these issues have dire consequences for the people of the island of Ireland. We are very aware in particular, at this terrible time, of the destructive power of the global pandemic. And as Brexit comes back to centre stage, all of us need to be very alert to the real dangers posed to Ireland, North and South, by the Little Englander approach of Boris Johnson and the myopic view of some in the DUP. We are also very conscious of the injustice of Partition and of its damaging dynamic, historically and currently, for all of us. But despite all this, we also need to appreciate the opportunities for positive change which have opened up before the pandemic and which will continue to open up in the time ahead. With the understandable focus on the pandemic this may at times be slightly below the radar. But it is there nonetheless. Mary Lou McDonald in her Presidential Ard Fheis address in Derry last November described this period as a “decade of opportunity.” She was right. This means that our strategic objectives must continue to guide all Sinn Féin’s endeavours in the time ahead. This is especially true of our primary strategic objective - Irish unity - and the winning of
a referendum on unity as set out in the Good Friday Agreement. We must continue to battle daily for peoples’ social and economic rights. They cannot wait. But without national freedom the 32 county Republic – The New Republic envisaged in the 1916 Proclamation, cannot be delivered. This has
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been a constant mantra of republicans. In more recent decades and especially during countless negotiations around the Peace Process it was a central tenet of our political strategy. We have been consistent on this. It is not a new position. For example, in my first meeting with John Hume in September 1986, I put it to him that we needed to cooperate to get the British Government to set aside the Government of Ireland Act. This was the Act by which Britain claimed sovereignty in Ireland. In 1987 Sinn Féin published ‘A Scenario for Peace’. Among other initiatives it called for an all-Ireland Constitutional Conference that would seek agreement on a new constitution and system of government. We called for the British government to repeal The Government of Ireland Act. In February 1992 Sinn Féin published ‘Towards a Lasting Peace’ in Ireland. At a time when no one else was discussing the possibility of peace, Sinn Féin called for a Peace Process and spelled out a strategy to achieve it. In a very significant shift, we placed the onus for progress on the two governments. Six years later, on March 9th 1998, a few • Without national freedom the 32 county Republic – The New Republic - envisaged in the 1916 Proclamation cannot be delivered 19
