As those who have been following the latest twists and turns in the wake of the Starmer report – which examined the way Barra McGrory’s increasingly dysfunctional Public Prosecution Service handled sexual abuse charges involving prominent IRA figures in West Belfast – will know, Gerry Adams’ response has been to claim that the abuse carried out against the most prominent victim, Mairia Cahill, was in fact perpetrated by ‘an uncle’, i.e. Martin Morris.

Mairia Cahill

It is clear that what Adams is trying to do here is to divert attention away from the IRA’s involvement in this sordid case by placing it in a family context and therefore nothing to do with the Provos. But the IRA’s fingerprints, so to speak, are all over the case.

First of all the accused abuser, Martin Morris was a member of the IRA’s secret police force, the so-called Administrative IRA, a much-feared body…