Gerry Adams, Irish Republican Leader, to Step Down From Sinn Fein<br />18, 2017<br />DUBLIN — Gerry Adams, a pivotal figure in the political life of Ireland for almost 50 years, said Saturday<br />that he would step down as leader of Sinn Fein, the main Irish Republican party, after more than three decades.<br />Since then Sinn Fein has evolved from a fringe party into the dominant Irish nationalist party in Northern Ireland<br />and the third-largest party to the south in the Irish Republic.<br />Mr. Adams will almost certainly be succeeded by someone with no direct involvement in the decades of conflict in Northern Ireland, a prospect<br />that would make Sinn Fein a more palatable coalition partner in the Irish Republic, where it has never been in power.<br />Reviled by many as the face of the Irish Republican Army during its campaign against British rule in Northern Ireland, Mr. Adams reinvented himself as a peacemaker in the troubled region<br />and then as a populist opposition member of the Irish Parliament.<br />Mr. Adams was a central figure in the republican nationalist movement throughout the three decades of violence between Catholic militants seeking<br />a united Ireland, mainly Protestant militants who wanted to maintain Northern Ireland’s position as a part of Britain, and the British Army.<br />At a packed party conference in Dublin, Mr. Adams said<br />that he would be replaced as its president at its next annual gathering and that he would not run for re-election to Parliament.
