whatever you say - say nothing

In a few weeks I hope to show a class of media history students that real hard-headed politics in contested zones won't be influenced by feel-good-media & like-it-on-facebook optimism. Instead I will tell about Gerry Adams masterminding secret negotiations with the UK government while being simultaneously on the board of the Provisional IRA's army command and representing his district as a Sinn Feinn MP. A dark shadowy tale of secretive, wartime power politics that, in the history or Irish Journalist Moloney, Adams was able to play with unmatched strategic skill. 

Doing some additional research I found the Provisional IRA's "Long War" objectives:

A war of attrition against enemy personnel based on causing as many deaths as possible so as to create a demand from their people at home for their withdrawal.

A bombing campaign aimed at making the enemy's financial interests in our country unprofitable while at the same time curbing long term investment in our country.
 
To make the Six Counties... ungovernable except by colonial military rule.
 
To sustain the war and gain support for its ends by National and International propaganda and publicity campaigns.
 
By defending the war of liberation by punishing criminals, collaborators and informers.

It's grim, scare-mongering and demented like everything else about the IRA. Turning the Six Counties in a kind Azkaban prison. But behind it was Adams, playing poker and winning.

The history if peace in N-Ireland, as brokered by Adams, was never in the news, beyond the media, undemocratically achieved, forced through the throat of IRA hawks, shadowy even now, but with real results and consequences. 

There is nothing in this story that will make you feel good, but the violence came to an end.