Before the Dawn: An Autobiography - Hardcover

Adams, Gerry

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0268103771 ISBN 13: 9780268103774

Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press, 2018

Synopsis

In this fascinating memoir of his early life, Gerry Adams, the president of Sinn Féin, describes the development of the modern “Troubles’’ in the North of Ireland, his experiences during that period, including secret talks with the British government and imprisonment, his leadership role in Sinn Féin, and the tragic hunger strike by imprisoned IRA prisoners in 1981. Born in 1948, Adams vividly recalls growing up in the working-class Ballymurphy district of West Belfast, where he became involved in the civil rights campaign in the late 1960s and was active in campaigns around issues of housing, unemployment, and civil rights. The unionist regime, which had been in interrupted power for 50 years, reacted violently to the protests, and the situation exploded into conflict. Adams recounts his growing radicalization, his work as a Sinn Féin activist and leader, his relationship with the IRA, and the British use of secret courts to condemn republicans. Adams was a political prisoner. He was arrested many times and recounts his torture. He spent a total of five years in the notorious Long Kesh prison camp. First as an internee, held without charge, and then as a sentenced prisoner after he made two failed attempts to escape. Adams chronicles the dramatic hunger strikes of Bobby Sands, Francis Hughes, Raymond McCreesh, and others in 1980–81 which saw ten men die. Though he opposed the hunger strike Adams was instrumental in organizing the mass campaign in support of the hunger strikers which saw Bobby Sands elected as a member of the British Parliament and Ciaran Doherty and Kevin Agnew elected to the Irish Parliament. Before the Dawn is an engaging and revealing self-portrait that is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand modern Ireland. First published in 1996―at a time when politics in the North of Ireland was in crisis and the Good Friday Agreement was still two years away―this new edition contains a brand new introduction and epilogue written by the author, covering Adams’s family, Brexit, and the peace process.

About this title

Review:

Closing in 1981 with the deaths of ten Irish Republican Army hunger strikers in Long Kesh prison, the author chronicles the years before he became president of Sinn Fein, the I.R.A.'s political wing. Wrenching accounts of the hunger strike and of the 1969 riots in Northern Ireland that turned a 20-year-old bartender into an activist are counterbalanced by the warmth with which Adams portrays his family and comrades, the atmospheric precision with which he evokes the sights and sounds of his West Belfast community. Not the whole truth by any means, but a compelling partisan document.

From the Publisher:

Gerry Adams has been at the forefront of Northern Ireland's struggle for nearly three decades, taking leadership positions and guiding his country in negotiating peace talks with England for the first time in their tumultuous history. Now, in Before the Dawn, Adams recounts his years growing up in the Irish countryside and, with startling detail, his early involvement in the IRA.

Adams includes engaging stories of his boyhood and never-before-told family tales. His description of his critical role in Northern Ireland's violent and dramatic revolutionary period will haunt and intrigue readers. Ireland instills the strongest of emotions in her offspring, and Adams is no exception. Lyrical and riveting, Before the Dawn explores the origins of one of this century's most compelling men.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 0268103771
• ISBN 13: 9780268103774
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 366