ANALYSIS:Party has issues to be finessed in North and needs 'rebooting' in the South after the setbacks of last year's general election, writes Gerry Moriarty
GERRY ADAMS took time off on Wednesday from preparing his speech to this weekend's Sinn Féin ardfheis at the Royal Dublin Society to address a crowd of about 100 people in west Belfast on the site of the demolished Andersonstown barracks. It is now a shrine to the three IRA apparent would-be bombers shot dead by the SAS in Gibraltar 20 years ago and to the three people murdered by Michael Stone in Milltown Cemetery during the funerals of the three IRA members. That was the week, too, that the two British army corporals were murdered during the funerals of one of the three killed in the cemetery.
With the dreary, cloudy day, the murals, the pictures of the dead, the fluttering tricolour and, particularly, the black flags, the occasion was a throwback to a dark, dangerous, depressing period - a week that was one of the worst of the Troubles, when the conflict teetered on the edge of anarchy, yet when finally the protagonists somehow pulled back from the brink and returned to the normal level of death and violence. The first IRA ceasefire was still more than six years away.
"That was then, this is now, we are in a better place," Adams told the crowd on Wednesday. Times have indeed changed.
Previous three-day ardfheiseanna were often dramatic affairs: Adams and Martin McGuinness wresting control from the old guard in 1986; the endless debates and tensions over ending the IRA "war" and decommissioning; and, just over a year ago, policing and powersharing - all issues that are generally done and dusted.
Which explains why this is only a two-day annual conference, concluding tomorrow evening after Adams's keynote speech. But as Adams acknowledged to The Irish Times on Wednesday, difficult issues remain - the crucial difference is that for the most part the challenges ahead are political, not paramilitary.
They are issues such as education, the Irish language, establishing a department of justice in the North, and Sinn Féin "rebooting" in the South after the setbacks of last year's general election.
The hardy annual of collusion is on the agenda tonight, but this time with the twist that the main speaker is Raymond McCord, whose loyalist son was murdered by the UVF in north Belfast. This triggered the former police ombudsman Nuala O'Loan's inquiry that exposed collusion between elements of the old RUC special branch and the UVF. McCord speaks from the hip, so what he has to say could be interesting and incendiary.
This is an ardfheis in which to take stock, gather some breath, restore self-belief - particularly south of the Border - and inject energy for the battles ahead. It's a conference, too, where Adams must reassert his central role, and his interest and dedication to the great republican project of a united Ireland by 2016 - or whenever. Hence the discussion of a "roadmap to Irish unity" tonight, tabled by the ardchomhairle.
With Martin McGuinness now the main face of Sinn Féin in the North, and often in the South, Adams has been noticeable by his absence from the political limelight.
The man probably needed a break. Yet, by his speech tomorrow evening, and by the vigour of his presence throughout the weekend, Adams must stimulate the republican heart to beat strongly again. With Sinn Féin in the Northern Executive, and plenty of work for Assembly members, apparatchiks and supporters, it shouldn't be too difficult to stir the red blood of the Northern delegates.
Southerners, however, having seen the Sinn Féin representation in the Dáil dip from five to four, against the expectations of huge gains, will need a confidence transfusion.
Adams said on Wednesday that Sinn Féin had paid attention to the "reality check" of the general election. There are motions about winning back Dublin South West, about making progress in rural areas, and about recruiting new members.
There's even a proposal from a Co Cavan cumann tonight that Sinn Féin should have joint presidents, one in the South and one in the North, which seems mildly partitionist. It will be interesting if Adams airs his opinion on what could be construed as a challenge to the Northern Adams-McGuinness leadership.
Maybe he'd welcome ceding some authority by job-sharing his presidency. He'll be 60 this October. Does he intend going on as long as Ian Paisley?
Sinn Féin hopes to make capital and media headlines by its opposition to the Lisbon Treaty. That may satisfy a certain constituency but on the agenda, at least, there is no sense of a party having a strategy to overcome what is the middle-class resistance to Sinn Féin in the Republic. That's a conundrum for Adams and his policymakers.
In the North, Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness getting on well together serves as a symbol for a potential new relationship between unionism and republicanism. But just as there are unionists who can't abide the First Minister being civil and genial with the Deputy First Minister so are there republicans who can't tolerate the smiling Paisley being First Minister. And when Paisley goes and Peter Robinson steps in, it could be the replacement of the Chuckle Brothers with the Brothers Grimm.
Still, we are political light years ahead from 14 months ago when Sinn Féin was in the throes of deciding whether to sign up to policing, and party delegates will be reminded of that fact. There are issues, but what should be clear this weekend is that they can be resolved or finessed, particularly if Sinn Féin and DUP leaders can hold on to the political will and energy that has so far served them well.
As Adams said on Wednesday: "All of us need to be very, very wise and strategic and calm and patient about how we come to deal with those problems."
Gerry Moriarty is Northern Editor