![\"Barry](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/3ACJARROGV75FSHQTWOCTXPVGY.jpg\")
Barry Laycock, a victim of the 1996 Arndale shopping centre bombing stands outside the High Court in central London on March 9th, 2026, ahead of a civil claims trial against Gerry Adams. Photograph: Getty <\/p>\nA barrister for Gerry Adams has told the High Court in London it was a \u201clogical fallacy\u201d to assume he was a leading member of the IRA.<\/p>\n
Edward Craven, who is defending Adams in a personal injuries suit brought against him by three victims of IRA bombings, said the case against him was built on hearsay that he was a member of the organisation and had sat on its army council.<\/p>\n
He said the case against Adams that he was in the IRA was based on \u201ca lot of smoke, [so] there must be a fire in there somewhere\u201d.<\/p>\n
The former Sinn F\u00e9in president is being sued for personal injury by three victims of IRA attacks \u2013 Jonathan Ganesh, John Clark and Barry Laycock \u2013 who allege he is personally liable for the bombings in Britain that injured them.<\/p>\n
The attacks include the Old Bailey bombing in 1973 and explosions in Manchester and London\u2019s docklands in 1996. The claimants are suing Adams for a nominal \u00a31 damages.<\/p>\n
Anne Studd, the barrister for the three IRA victims, argued the bombings in Britain happened with \u201cthe knowledge and agreement of [Adams]\u201d as an IRA member and, in the 1990s, \u201ca member of the seven man [IRA] army council\u201d.<\/p>\n
But Craven said there was \u201cno credible evidence\u201d to link him to the three bombings. He said the Troubles era was \u201cfertile ground for rumours\u201d that over time had \u201cmetamorphosed into assumed facts\u201d about Adams.<\/p>\n
Earlier, Studd told the court in London the claimants would seek to prove Adams was \u201cso intrinsically involved\u201d in the IRA that he \u201cwas as culpable as those who planted the bombs. Adams has always denied being a member of the IRA, and is fighting the case.<\/p>\n
There was a heavy police presence in central London at the Royal Courts of Justice complex on Strand, next to Fleet Street.<\/p>\n
There were five police vans parked near the court complex when it opened at 9am, as well as some of Adams\u2019s supporters with Irish tricolours. The former Sinn F\u00e9in president appeared at Court 16 \u2013 known as the Chancellor\u2019s Court \u2013 shortly before 10am.<\/p>\n
Studd spent the morning going laying out the claimants\u2019 basis for their claim. She cited evidence of Adams\u2019s alleged wearing of a beret at a 1970 IRA funeral.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe would never have been entitled to wear the beret unless he had taken the oath of an [IRA] volunteer,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Barry Laycock, a victim of the 1996 Arndale shopping centre bombing stands outside the High Court in central London on March 9th, 2026, ahead of a civil claims trial against Gerry Adams. Photograph: Getty <\/p>\n
Studd referred to his attendance at secret meetings in 1972 between the IRA and British government officials. Adams has argued that he was at those meetings as a member of Sinn F\u00e9in, but Ms Studd referred to later writings from former IRA leader Se\u00e1n Mac St\u00edof\u00e1in which she argued suggested that only IRA members had attended.<\/p>\n
The claimants argued that Adams had made certain admissions around being an IRA member when he was arrested in 1972, but the former Sinn F\u00e9in president is arguing that any confessions were unreliable because he was beaten after his arrest.<\/p>\n
Studd cited a 2010 interview with former IRA member Dolours Price, who was one of ten convicted of the Old Bailey bombing. She said Adams had been present at a meeting to recruit the teams for attacks in Britain and said it was a \u201changing\u201d offences.<\/p>\n
Later, Craven said Price had a \u201cvirulent hatred\u201d for Adams and \u201cloathed\u201d the peace process that Adams had helped to drive.<\/p>\n
The claimants allege Adams was the IRA prisoner who wrote a 1970s column in republican newspaper An Phoblacht under the pseudonym Brownie. Adams is arguing that he was not the only person who wrote that column.<\/p>\n
He says a specific column, in which Brownie admits being in the IRA \u2013 \u201crightly or wrongly, I\u2019m an IRA volunteer\u201d \u2013 was written by his then-assistant, Richard McAuley.<\/p>\n
The three Troubles victims are also relying on claims by former IRA member Sean O\u2019Callaghan that he attended IRA meetings with Adams in the 1980s. Studd also cited the words of former politicians including justice minister Michael McDowell, as well as evidence from former RUC and British army intelligence officers.<\/p>\n
She said evidence showed Adams only too a \u201cbackwards step\u201d from leading the IRA in the 2000s, a decade after the docklands and Manchester bombings. Adams is arguing that evidence shows Sinn F\u00e9in politician Gerry Kelly \u201cdominated and controlled\u201d the IRA in the 1990s, not him.<\/p>\n
Adams is also arguing that the personal injury claims against him are time-barred, and that the views of intelligence officers and others are \u201chearsay\u201d.<\/p>\n
The case, which will play out over this week and next, is the first time Adams will be cross examined in a British court about whether or not he was in the IRA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A barrister for Gerry Adams has told the High Court in London it was a \u201clogical fallacy\u201d to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":337445,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1457,42,6285,43,1650,40,38,41,39,16875],"class_list":["post-337444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-court","tag-headlines","tag-horizontal","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-trial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337444\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}