A visit from an old friend
MICHEAL MacDONNCHA accompanied Gerry Adams on his Dublin election
tour
For a generation of Sinn Féin activists the first election
campaign they fought was in 1983, when Christy Burke shocked the
establishment by beating the Labour Party into fifth place in a
Leinster House by-election. I remember standing outside a polling
station in Sherriff Street in the pouring rain beside Michael D.
Higgins on a dark November polling night. The changes in Sherriff
Street have matched the changes in Dublin city and in the
fortunes of Irish politics since then.
Most of the old flats in Sherriff Street have been pulled down
and many people have had to move out to suburbs. New Corporation
houses have been built and much of the old community has held
together, because they had the determination to defend their
right to stay. But the biggest change is the nearby Custom House
Docks and Financial Services Centre. Hyped as a boon to the area
it has provided no jobs for Sherriff Street. But the community is
still fighting. Against government neglect. Against Corpo
bureaucracy. Against the drug pushers.
His profile on the world stage means that people forget that
visits by Gerry Adams to communities like this are nothing new.
He was coming here before the glare of publicity was on him, in
1983 and long before then. He identifies instinctively with
people like those in Sherriff Street, Killinarden, Crumlin,
Neilstown, Darndale. That was the theme of his visit to Dublin on
Monday 26 May.
More than once he described it as ``an uplifting experience''. He
commended people's efforts to reclaim their areas from drugs and
official indifference. You could see that after the initial
novelty of `stardom' had waned his words struck a chord that
other politicians do not touch. It wasn't about what Sinn Féin
could do for them. It was about what they have done and can do in
the future for themselves. Several times he pointed to children
in the crowd and said they had a right to expect that these kids
should have a third level education, could be doctors or teachers
or anything to which they aspired.
In Darndale hundreds of people turned out to hear him at an
anti-drugs rally. When he finished speaking a woman stepped
forward, shook his hand and said: ``Fair play to you Gerry, you
stuck by us for years while those lazy bastards did nothing.''
In Buckingham Street after he heard an anti-drugs song he left
them with words of encouragement. ``Reclaim your areas. Keep
organising yourselves. And keep singing.''
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