Photo: Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams in conversation Cathy McCafferty and Padraig MacLochlainn, his party’s candidates in the forthcoming Local Government and European elections.

Gerry Adams arrived in Ennis on Saturday evening expecting some respite from the hectic schedule of a political party leader. Mr Adams was combining a speaking engagement with the Ennis Book Club Festival with a public meeting to promote Sinn Féin and to seek support for his party’s local election candidates, Sean Hayes and Cathy McCafferty.
    Mr Adams had just completed a relaxed engagement with party supporters and other interested observers at the public meeting in the Templegate Hotel when news started to filter through of a shooting incident in Co. Antrim.
    It wasn’t until the next morning that the full extent of that incident was known. Two British soldiers had been killed and two others injured while taken delivery of pizzas at  Massereene army base, 16 miles from Belfast.
    Adams, who was accompanied by his friend and confidante Richard McAuley, engaged closely with his party’s head office to put together a public statement.
    News outlets throughout the country waited, almost anticipating an ambiguously crafted document.
    What they got was very clear. For the first time ever Sinn Féin condemned the killing of British soldiers in Ireland as “wrong and counter productive”.
    Adams stated, “This attack was an attack on the peace process. It was wrong and counter productive.
     “Those responsible have no support, no strategy to achieve a United Ireland. Their intention is to bring British soldiers back onto the streets. They want to destroy the progress of recent times and to plunge Ireland back into conflict.
     “Irish republicans and democrats have a duty to oppose this and to defend the peace process.  Sinn Fein has a strategy to bring about an end to British rule in our country by peaceful and democratic means.
     “There should be an end to actions like the one in Antrim last night. The popular will is for peaceful and democratic change.
     “Sinn Fein has a responsibility to be consistent. The logic of this is that we support the police in the apprehension of those involved in last nights attack.
     “The police also have a responsibility to give leadership and to behave at all times in a transparent and accountable manner. The British Government has a duty to uphold the new political arrangement and the peace process.
     “I particularly want to appeal to republicans once again for calm, thoughtful and decisive leadership.
    “The peace process was built against the odds and not least because of the willingness of republicans to take risks and to be strategic and long sighted.
    “There are elements within Unionism and within the British system who do not want the peace process to achieve its objectives. Our responsibility is to defend the peace process and the progress that has been made to achieving national and democratic rights.
     “We will not be deflected from our republican and democratic objectives,” he concluded.