Tomás Ó Flatharta

Newspaper readers who followed reports of a very unusual Gerry Adams London trial were not surprised by its collapse.

Procedurally. for this category of case, there is a 3 year time limit. People injured in three IRA bombings – Old Bailey 1973; Docklands and Manchester 1996 – put Gerry Adams in the dock seeking nominal damages of £1 on the grounds that the former Sinn Féin president had been an IRA leader.

Claimants were well aware of these rules, – they did not have a leg to stand on legally. The only issue was whether Judge Jonathan Swift (yes, same name as the famous Irish satirist who wrote Gulliver’s Travels!) would apply the rules. Judge Swift would have looked a bigger fool than Lemuel Gulliver if he ignored the regulations, and an appeal court later overturned his verdict. [1]

Mark Hennessy contributed this analysis in the March 19 2026 issue of the Irish Times :