I was born in 1973. So throughout the 1980s, getting up for school many mornings, there were few news bulletins which didn’t lead with overnight news of another bomb, shooting or massacre in the north. Growing up in the south, I literally knew nobody who supported what the IRA was doing, supposedly in our name.

We knew of few Sinn Féin politicians, because southern nationalists abhorred the IRA, even those who yearned for a united Ireland. Sinn Féin, their political mouthpiece, was unelectable as a result. Granted, had I been growing up north of the border I may well have been of a different view.

If I’d been born there in 1953 and looked for a job in the civil service, or lived in Derry during Bloody Sunday, or played Gaelic football ,or had an innocent relative interned, yeah my tune might have been different. It’s in the same way some people born in 1983 or 1993 down south are polar opposites to my generation in their opinion of Sinn Féin, the IRA and Gerry Adams.

In the ’80s Adams was this mysterious bearded unkempt figure, our suspicion of him aided by the fact we could see him, but never hear him.

Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act prevented members of Sinn Féin from being heard on television or radio. Seems kind of ridiculous to younger people now, but what it did was create this aura of a movement led by Adams that could not be trusted.

Remember there was no peace process at this time, nor any hint of one.

To most of us Adams was the face of these otherwise faceless IRA gunmen and bombers. The likes of the more respectable John Hume and Seamus Mallon tried to give us hope. But we just shook our heads saying: “There’ll be no peace in our lifetime.” All we had to do was observe the uncompromising craw thumping of Ian Paisley to underline the assertion.

But a ceasefire and eventually a kind of peace was achieved with Adams and Paisley, the headline acts in nursing the hard-won Good Friday agreement across the line. For Adams, it was some road from alleged IRA leader to Stormont legislator.

And that’s where the debate begins about the legacy of Gerry Adams. Peace maker or terrorist commander?

For those born in 1983 or 1993, the summation is arguably more complimentary to that of my generation. Millennials have grown up to a different Gerry Adams, the “champion of the marginalised”, republican icon and international statesman self aligned to the struggles of the likes of Nelson Mandela.

They have seen him successfully lead a movement that’s grown exponentially across five general elections from one TD 21 years ago to 23 today. And no doubt they have been tickled by his right on tweets about Shrek, teddy bears and rubber ducks.

The bombs, shootings, torture, criminality and massacres carried out by his pals in the IRA (not forgetting loyalist and British forces murderers) in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s don’t resonate with the young people today who vote enthusiastically for Sinn Féin.

It’s why they’ve 23 TDs today compared with none only two decades ago. So as he exits stage left from frontline politics, in time when the question is asked: “Who was Gerry Adams?” Those born in 1993 will give you a much different answer to those of us born in 1973. Sums up the complexity of the man. CL

Healy-Rae effect

I sometimes wonder if the Healy-Rae brothers had more neutral accents and one of them didn’t wear a cap, would their detractors view them as effective politicians?