The Disappearance of Gerry Adams (Part 2)

In my previous blog (Read it here) I revealed that during the 1970s or early 1980s, Gerry Adams was replaced by Gerry Adams, who for the sake of clarity, we shall refer to as Theme Park Gerry, a reimagined, Disneyfied version of the original, Real Gerry. It is hard to give an exact date for when this occurred. It was rather bizarrely, a gradual disappearance.

As I promised, in the first part of this magical mystery tour around the lesser known parts of Gerry and indeed Belfast of yesteryear, I will act as your guide into the past. In order to understand how or why Real Gerry may have disappeared, it may be helpful to study the past and try to get a feel for the time and place.


The Precedent

I remember Belfast in 1972. Many strange things happened. 

Joe Linskey was a friend and neighbour of Gerry Adams. Linskey was also a friend of Dolours Price.

In August 1972, Joe Linskey was living with his sister in west Belfast. Dolours Price arrived at the home of her friend and told him he had an important meeting to attend.  Linskey packed an overnight bag and Price drove him south across the Irish border into County Monaghan. Linskey was never seen again.  

Joe Linskey was a former Cistercian monk, who left his religious order and got involved in Irish Republican politics, eventually becoming a founding member of PIRA, around 1969. At the time of his disappearance, Linskey was the Intelligence Officer for PIRA's Belfast Brigade. 

Joe Linskey (aka Lynskey)

The Volunteer

Dolours Price was twenty-two years old when she drove Joe Linskey across the Irish border. The previous year Price, who had considered a teaching career, became the first woman to join the IRA as a full member, a 'volunteer', rather than a female auxiliary in the Cumann na mBan. Price was from a well known and respected Irish Republican family, which may have helped open the door on her terrorism career. Price was able to approach the PIRA Chief of Staff, Sean Mac Stiofain, to put her case for joining. After a meeting of the PIRA Army Council, her wish was granted.

Dolours Price would claim years later, that during the drive south with Joe Linskey, she considered taking her friend to a port and telling him to leave the country, but Price was a committed PIRA volunteer, or more accurately, terrorist. Price was a true believer, raised on stories about the Easter Rising and the IRA. Price followed her orders.

Price of course knew the true purpose of the journey and that Linskey would not be returning home. When the pair arrived at the rendezvous point, just across the border, a group of men were waiting. Joe thanked his friend Dolours and told her not to worry. He probably knew what lay ahead.

Decades later, Dolours would admit to having been a member of a secret PIRA unit called 'the Unknowns' and that as part of her work for this secret team, she participated in her friend's "disappearance". He was the precedent. The first victim of  the Provisional IRA's strategy for dealing with awkward situations. Linskey's secret abduction, murder and disappearance, was the template that would be used for further victims. 

The unit was led by a former British soldier named Pat McClure, or 'wee Pat', who would several years later, leave Northern Ireland in a hurry and start a new life in North America, where, somewhat surprisingly, he found a job as a prison guard. However, Dolours Price has claimed that the Officer Commanding of the Unknowns, was in fact Gerry Adams, or Real Gerry.

It should be noted dear reader, that the aforementioned Gerry Adams, denies ever being in the IRA, or ever having any involvement in terrorist activity, including Joe Linskey's "disappearance". 

In 2010, when PIRA finally got around to admitting their involvement in Linskey's death, when the murder was detailed in a book, Gerry Adams stated in an interview that he was a neighbour of Linskey and knew that he had disappeared. He also asked for anyone with knowledge of the disappearance, to notify the relevant authorities.

Sadly no-one in PIRA had bothered adding Linskey to the list of names submitted several years earlier, to the Independent Commission responsible for locating the bodies of the disappeared. It's almost as if PIRA hadn't wanted to admit to this particular murder, in the same way that they had lied for decades about the other disappeared.

Dolours Price

The Dark

As detailed in a previous blog Brendan 'The Dark' Hughes was a leading figure in Belfast PIRA and a close friend of Gerry Adams. 

In June 1972, a member of PIRA, whilst holding his child, was shot in the doorway of his home. Holding the child perhaps saved his life, by forcing the gunman to make a poorly aimed shot. The injured man managed to make his way to a near-by club, where arrangements were made to spirit him away, across the border for medical treatment. Whilst at the club, he told Brendan Hughes that he thought it was a member of the Official IRA that shot him. The Officials (OIRA) were rivals to PIRA, following their split in 1969.

Hughes was very much a hands on kind of leader and took a number of men from D Company PIRA, to a drinking club called the Cracked Cup, that was used by OIRA. Hughes had intended to make 'arrests' regarding the shooting. In an altercation inside the club, a customer named Dessie Mackin was shot and bled to death on the floor where he fell. Hughes and his men then took several OIRA members into 'custody' at a house, but were forced to release them when a crowd of OIRA supporters gathered outside.

Rather awkwardly, Brendan Hughes discovered later that day, it was not a member of OIRA that had shot one of his men. The gunman, was another member of PIRA, unwittingly following orders given by Joe Linskey, the Belfast PIRA intelligence officer. Further investigations revealed that Linskey had been having an affair with the wife of the PIRA member, shot and injured at his home. The murder bid, was Linskey's clumsy attempt to remove his love rival.

Years later, Hughes claimed that he was not involved in Linskey's disappearance, but that he believed, following an internal inquiry, Linskey was taken away by the 'the Unknowns'. Hughes also made it clear that he had no control of the unit. They were he claimed, Gerry Adams' squad. It was Hughes' opinion that Linskey was taken for interrogation and probably shot and buried.

Again dear reader, it should be noted that Gerry Adams denies ever being in the IRA and refutes the allegations by Dolours Price and Brendan Hughes.

Gerry Adams & Brendan Hughes (Long Kesh Prison)

This is just one tale of many, from 1970s Belfast, but I hope it conveys the type of atmosphere within which Real Gerry lived and worked. It was a dangerous place in strange times. It wasn't that unusual for people to disappear for a period of time, perhaps days or weeks, and in certain circles it was just accepted that you didn't ask too many questions when people reappeared. Some people never came back. Sadly, for Joe Linskey's family, his body has still not been recovered. 


My first blog in this series is available here.

The blog that covers Brendan Hughes and his friendship with Gerry Adams, is available here.