Gerry Adams speaks to the BBC ahead of events marking the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement
By Mark Simpson
BBC News NI correspondent
Former Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams has said he only recently realised how difficult it had been for the Ulster Unionist leader, David Trimble, to support the Good Friday Agreement.
He told BBC News NI that it was after Lord Trimble’s death last year that he fully appreciated how “brave” he was.
Mr Adams was speaking ahead of the agreement’s 25th anniversary in April.
The historic peace deal brought an end to 30 years of conflict in Northern Ireland, known as the Troubles.
It was reached on 10 April 1998 after talks in Belfast involving most of the main political parties, as well as the British and Irish governments.
The previous year, the IRA had called a ceasefire, which allowed Sinn Féin to become involved in the negotiations.
Image source, PAcemaker
Gerry Adams described David Trimble’s actions as brave
In the interview, Mr Adams claimed the IRA could have continued “forever” if the peace process had not taken place.
He said the agreement was arguably the most important Irish political event in the past 100 years.
While acknowledging that it did not guarantee a united Ireland, Mr Adams, 74, said he believed it could happen in his lifetime.
Unionist split
The agreement split the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), which at the time was the largest unionist party and was being led by David Trimble.
Some members of the UUP negotiating team, including Jeffrey Donaldson, refused to sign up to the agreement and left the talks at the last minute.
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Splits within the UUP team led to defections, including Jeffrey Donaldson (right)
Reflecting on this 25 years later, Mr Adams said: “Because we were so busy managing our own house, it was only when David Trimble died, and I saw some of the footage of him speaking at unionist meetings and other meetings with unionist folk, that I realised how brave he was in arguing as he was arguing.”
Lord Trimble subsequently received the Nobel Peace Prize, along with John Hume, leader of the nationalist SDLP (Social Democratic and Labour Party).
Possible walkout
Mr Adams led the Sinn Féin delegation at the negotiations.
Looking back, he said: “It’s certainly the most important agreement of our time, and arguably for the last 100 years or so.
“It’s a rather complex agreement. Interestingly enough, it’s an agreement to a journey without agreement on the destination.”
The night before the deal was agreed, there were rumours that the Sinn Féin negotiating team was close to walking out of the talks.
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Gerry Adams described threats to his life during negotiations as an “occupational hazard”
Mr Adams denied this, but he said the chairperson of the negotiations, Senator George Mitchell, had discussed the issue of walkouts with him.
He said: “George Mitchell said to me, maybe around Holy Thursday or that, he said ‘David Trimble thought Sinn Féin was going to walk out, and now he’s beginning to realise that you aren’t, now he has a big decision to make’.”
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Adams and Trimble
When Sinn Féin entered the talks in 1997, Ian Paisley’s party, the DUP (Democratic Unionist Party), left the negotiations but David Trimble’s Ulster Unionists stayed, although they did not engage directly with Gerry Adams or his colleagues.
“David (Trimble) wasn’t talking to us. I met him once in the men’s room, and said hello to him and he told me to ‘grow up’,” said Mr Adams
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David Trimble and then Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams on 8 April, 1998 during a break in negotiations before the signing of the Good Friday Agreement
“Subsequently, after the agreement, I used to meet him quite often, and privately, and we got on I think quite well, and we got to know each other at a personal level.”
Threat of republican split
Given the long history of Irish republican splits, Mr Adams was asked if he felt he had taken a personal risk in backing the agreement.
“The issue of my life being at risk over the agreement didn’t ever enter into it, and that’s not to say I was a hard man or anything else. It was an occupational hazard,” he replied.
Some saw the 1994 and 1997 IRA ceasefires as signs that the IRA’s capability had been weakened, mainly due to penetration by the security services.
‘IRA could have continued forever’
In the interview, Mr Adams insisted the IRA had enough support to continue, if it wanted, but the peace process presented an alternative way forward for republicans.
The former Sinn Féin leader said: “We realised that the IRA could have continued for ever, because it had the base of support that it had, and it had obviously the capacity.”
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Armed Provisional IRA members openly displaying weapons at a Bloody Sunday demonstration in Derry in 1978
Asked if it could really have continued “forever”, he replied: “Oh yes. For as long as it deemed it necessary, and had there not been the initiatives taken to present the alternative.”
Entering Stormont
There was some surprise in 1998 that Sinn Féin agreed to a deal that included a Northern Ireland Assembly, which met at Stormont.
Mr Adams said: “I remember Martin McGuinness and I driving, or being driven, up that famous sort of thoroughfare and past the statue and saying to Martin, ‘you know we’re going to have to go in there some day, we need a space to moderate our differences’.
“It was alien in terms of its geography, and all of the symbols and emblems that surrounded the place and its history of course was woeful.”
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Mr Adams said Stormont was a space to moderate differences
He added: “The agreement wasn’t a settlement. The agreement was an accord to bring an end to the conflict and to allow people then to pursue their aims, whatever they may be, peacefully and democratically.”
‘I will grow old in united Ireland’
Mr Adams led Sinn Féin from 1983 to 2018, and was elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly and also the Dáil (Irish parliament). He was MP for West Belfast but did not take his seat in the House of Commons.
He has now retired from elected politics.
The interview with BBC News NI took place in the room at Castle Buildings on the Stormont estate, where the multi-party negotiations were completed on Good Friday in April 1998.
Mr Adams spoke to BBC News NI’s Mark Simpson in the room at Castle Buildings where negotiations took place
Asked if he believed he would see a united Ireland if he lived until he was 100, he said: “It will come in phases. We’re actually in a process of change.”
Mr Adams, 74, added: “I don’t know if I’ll live on until I’m 100 but certainly I’d like to think if I live long enough, that I will grow old in a free, united Ireland.”
Declan Harvey and Tara Mills explore the text of the Good Friday Agreement – the deal which heralded the end of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
They look at what the Agreement actually said and hear from some of the people who helped get the deal across the line.
Click here to listen to the full box set on BBC Sounds.
