Gerry Kelly’s mix of righteousness and victimhood fits the cry-bully culture of Sinn Féin

Sinn Féin’s legal actions against the media are not a “co-ordinated campaign”, TD Pearse Doherty has told Newstalk, while discussing a libel defeat for his Stormont colleague Gerry Kelly. Individual party members are simply exercising the right “to defend their good name”.

Politicians must have that right, of course. Members of many parties avail of it. The problem is that Sinn Féin is drawing everyone into a world where one man’s good reputation is another man’s criminal record.

Striking the case out at Belfast High Court, the judge noted Kelly has convictions for two bombings in London and his “general reputation is as a person who supported the violent actions of the Provisional IRA, including the murders committed by that organisation”.

As such, Kelly has no reputation to lose in the mind of a “right-thinking person”.

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That is how the law sees it, but it looks rather different to the majority of Sinn Féin supporters, who tell pollsters IRA violence was justified. Other parties already find it difficult to treat such a large chunk of the electorate as wrong-thinking people.

[ Gerry Kelly facing legal bill of at least £150,000 after ‘frivolous’ libel action ]

Kelly’s confusion between good and bad was both general and specific. He was attempting to sue the writer Malachi O’Doherty over two radio interviews in 2019, in which O’Doherty said Kelly had shot a prison officer during the IRA’s Maze prison escape in 1983.

Kelly was acquitted of the shooting, although the victim identified him. However, the Sinn Féin assembly member has published two books on the escape, in which he admits being armed and threatening to shoot a prison officer. The judge said Kelly’s writing is “unclear” on whether he or another man fired the shot. This inferred joint culpability under the lower standard of proof in a civil court, rendering the case “vexatious”.

Other aspects of Kelly’s publishing career rendered it ridiculous. The Stormont assembly member held a promotional tour for his 2013 book on the escape, regaling audiences with what he called “a great yarn”. The atmosphere at these events was often lighthearted, a republican version of Britain’s sentimentality about Colditz. A film based on the book was made in 2019, co-funded by RTÉ, the Irish Film Board and Cork County Council.

It requires a strange mix of righteousness and victimhood to boast of your crimes, yet still feel wronged enough to turn to the law when others mention them.

The judge said the case was clearly a SLAPP, or strategic lawsuit against public participation. Kelly was suing O’Doherty personally, rather than the two radio stations. He has a similar case against the historian Ruth Dudley Edwards, but has never sued any of the other media outlets who have reported he shot the prison officer. This pointed to “an attempt to silence two bothersome journalists with the threat of legal costs... rather than being a genuine attempt to defend a reputation”.

That need not be the whole story. The appeal of a financial award should not be overlooked. Kelly’s mix of righteousness and victimhood could be sincerely felt, even if contradictory. It would fit the cry-bully culture of Sinn Féin, the largest party in Ireland, yet still somehow always the injured party.

A different illustration of Sinn Féin wrestling with its own importance occurred last November. Deputy leader Michelle O’Neill had been insulted on Facebook by a DUP councillor, and sought damages for defamation.

The judge at Belfast High Court found the councillor’s comments were abusive but not defamatory because there was no evidence of harm to O’Neill’s reputation. He noted she is on first-name terms with presidents and prime ministers, while the councillor was a pathetic figure whose career had been destroyed.

The judge added it is “undesirable and not in the public interest” for the High Court to hear “disputes between politicians involving insults which one imagines are sometimes heard in school playgrounds or outside pubs on Saturday nights”.

[ Gerry Kelly defamation action ‘completely untenable’ due to statements in his own books ]

At a previous hearing on the case, the Sinn Féin deputy leader appeared bemused by the suggestion she is too powerful to be defamed by an insulting social media post, no matter how much it offends her.

Even offence is judged in modern society by the power relationship between offender and offended. O’Neill could be first minister within weeks: perhaps then she will appreciate she is at the top of Northern Ireland’s political pyramid.

The judge in both her and Kelly’s cases was the master of the court, who decides whether a trial is warranted. The term “struck out” is slightly misleading – these actions were so absurd they were not even booked in. Kelly will have to pay his own and O’Doherty’s costs, which is bound to prompt caution.

But given Sinn Féin’s success at redefining good and bad in the public mind, that is unlikely to be the final verdict on its libel strategy.