Word: fein
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Back on the streets of Belfast, Adams turned his energies toward revitalizing Sinn Fein. "He is a political genius," says Bernadette Devlin McAliskey, a fiery Republican activist in the 1970s. "He has great patience. I've seen him under pressure, and he never loses his temper. He encourages debate and slowly builds consensus so he can take the whole movement along...
...leader of Sinn Fein came early to this dual role. In 1972, as street battles between Catholic Republicans and Protestant Unionists raged in Belfast, Adams was arrested by the British army and interned without charge. "There is nothing like being in an interrogation room to test your commitment," he says. He became a prison leader, and at 23 he was plucked out of jail with other I.R.A. veterans to negotiate a cease-fire in London. The peace pact was short-lived, and soon Adams was back behind bars, where he settled down to a "monastic regimen of studying, research...
Adams gradually moved Sinn Fein into electoral politics. The party won some local elections, and in 1983 Adams was elected to Britain's House of Commons from the Belfast West constituency. He refused to take up his seat, since it required him to pledge allegiance to the Queen, but he relished the prestige of being a British M.P. In 1992 Adams lost the seat and was bitterly disappointed. "It was our own fault," he says. "We were complacent, and I was skating around the country doing other work...
...Sinn Fein, the I.R.A. and other Republican organizations constantly bicker over goals and tactics, but when trouble strikes and there are funerals to attend, the intertwining relationships pull everyone together. Adams felt no compunction about attending the funeral of I.R.A. member Thomas Begley, who died last October when the bomb he was planting in a fishmonger's shop in a Protestant neighborhood went off prematurely, killing nine men, women and children besides himself. As is the custom at Irish funerals, Adams "took a lift," shouldering the coffin for a short time on the way to the cemetery. ; That picture stirred...
NORTHERN IRELAND: Silver Tongue of Sinn Fein...