abstract
| - thumb|Gerry Adams Sr. e Jr. Gerry Adams Sr. (1926 – November 17 2003) was a Belfast Irish Republican Army (IRA) volunteer who took part in its Northern Campaign in the 1940s. He was captured during an IRA operation in 1942, and served five years in prison, but was released under an amnesty because of his youth at the time of conviction. He married Anne Hannaway, also a republican from an established republican family, by whom he had thirteen children (three of whom died in infancy), including Gerry Adams, who became a leading figure in Sinn Féin and is now its president, as well as absentionist MP for West Belfast. He died on November 17 2003, "a lonely old man" [1], despite the private reservations of family members over alleged abuse that would only be publicly revealed some years later [2]. He was buried with the Irish tricolour. In December 2009, six years after his death, his family revealed that he had subjected some members of his family to emotional, physical and sexual abuse over many years. The family said that this abuse "had a devastating impact" on the family, which they were still then coming to terms with [3]. The family decided to go public about the abuse in order to help other families in similar circumstances.
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