Gerry Adams actually thought his grisly video was funny

The video of Gerry Adams supposedly singing festive greetings but actually citing an IRA slogan is hardly surprising.

Mr Adams has rarely seemed to show even the awareness that his late republican colleague Martin McGuinness did about when not to step over the line.

The former Sinn Fein president was recorded on a doorstep singing ‘Tis the season to be jolly, tiocfaidh ar la, la, la, la, la’.

The one-time MP for West Belfast seems to inhabit such an insulated, tribalised world that he thought such a video might be funny.

Christmas is at its core a time to remember the story and message of Christ. But even for non believers it is widely observed and savoured as a time of goodwill.

For victims of loss it can be a period for poignant remembrance of loved ones who are not there. So for victims of IRA terrorism, such as Austin Stack or Ann Travers, this was of course going to be a grotesque video (given not only the horrifying chorus, but its other references such as the taunting quip of 1995 ‘They haven’t gone away you know’).

How should people respond to these grisly episodes?

Such incidents are not going to stop. The IRA campaign of murder and mayhem is being rehabilitated, subtly but relentlessly, with a slow but unending legacy shift towards a focus on UK state forces that patiently saw off that terrorism.

There is no hint of reflection or honesty or regret or sensitivity from republican leaders. Just an increasingly confident, smug and triumphalist Sinn Fein — a party that has to be in power in Stormont at all times, and knows it, and periodically will make demands that will invariably be met in some shape or form. UK governments dare not criticise them. Irish politicians increasingly try to out-green them (with admirable exceptions such as Micheal Martin).

Perhaps though such distasteful episodes help explain why SF has not yet reached the electoral heights it thought it would have done by now.

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