A chara, – "It's time for Gerry Adams to bow out and take his fictional counterpart with him" writes Fintan O’Toole (Opinion, November 5th). This follows on from Harry McGee's article "Doherty and McDonald out in front as SF seeks Adams successor" (Home News, November 2nd). And so our objective media's obsession with Gerry Adams continues. In fact it is more than an obsession, it is a concerted pursuit of Adams.
This laboured struggling pursuit of Adams continues using a number of avenues: television programmes where interviewees who were vitriolic opponents of Adams, Sinn Féin and the Belfast Agreement in life are given an unquestioning factual truthfulness in death; through Adams’s niece’s tragic abuse case which was simply jumped on by some sections of the media as a vehicle to pursue and smear Adams.
In June of this year, despite the ongoing constant negativity concerning Gerry Adams in our media, the Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll indicated that Gerry Adams, not for the first time, was the most popular party leader here. But why? How? Can journalists and our media be so distant from reality?
I have no doubt that the pursuit of Gerry Adams will continue until he decides to retire from Irish politics. No doubt when that day arrives we will have the same journalists writing the same authoritative opinion pieces portraying Adams’s political life in a less than favourable light. And no doubt at that stage Adams will be unperturbed as he gracefully leaves Government Buildings for the last time. – Is mise,
EF FANNING,
Whitehall Road,
Churchtown,
Dublin 14.