DUBLIN: Gerry Adams, the former spokesman for Ireland’s armed republican movement, has launched a cookery book — touting its platter of recipes as “the best kept secret of the Irish peace process”.

The Negotiators Cook Book contains recipes which fed republican forces during talks which brokered the 1998 Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland.

It is “the perfect Christmas present” according to Adams — who has given the volume an alternative title of The Peas Process.

“When you bring together a group of hungry republicans they have to be fed,” the 70-year-old said in a video launching the book. “So who fed them? We fed ourselves.”

The thin book, retailing at $11.40 is packed with recipes for “soup, home -baked bread, pasta dishes, salads, hams, pies, fish dishes or veggie meals, fine desserts and exotic moist fruit cakes”, according to its blurb on the website of Sinn Fein, the all-Ireland republican party which Adams led for almost 35 years.

Over the course of his political career Adams has shifted from acting as the political voice of the IRA, to being an instrumental agent in the peace process.

Adams has continued to serve as a lawmaker in the Irish parliament after stepping down from the Sinn Fein leadership earlier this year.

Published in Dawn, October 31st, 2018