SINN FÉIN president Gerry Adams was last night chosen as the party’s general election candidate for the Louth constituency.
Mr Adams was unopposed for the party’s nomination and said it would be a “huge honour” to work for the people of the county if elected to Dáil Éireann.
About 200 delegates turned up for last night’s convention at the Fairways Hotel in Dundalk.
The convention itself lasted only 30 minutes, with Mr Adams being proposed by local councillor Edel Corrigan and seconded by councillor Pearse McGeough. He was given a standing ovation by delegates.
Mr Adams spent much of the day yesterday defending himself against allegations contained in the WikiLeaks cables that he knew about the Northern Bank robbery before it happened.
However, he did not refer to it in his acceptance speech, stating instead that Sinn Féin had a vision “way beyond the imagination of these other parties”.
“It is for a united Ireland and the hugely important task started 200 years ago to unite Catholic, Protestant and dissenter,” he said.
“We will be the generation that will live in a united and free Ireland. Our job is to tell people who we are. It is our job to have belief. We are talking about putting in place a better Ireland and making a stand for republicanism and citizenship.”
Mr Adams announced his intention to stand in the constituency last month after the party’s finance spokesman Arthur Morgan declared his intention not to stand for re-election.
Afterwards, Mr Adams said he had never sought to impose himself on the constituency and only agreed to stand after consulting local councillors.
“Had any of them rejected me, I would have accepted that entirely. I’m not about walking over people or being vainglorious,” he said.
Mr Adams confirmed that he had yet to find a home in the constituency and was living with a friend of his.
“I’m still the MP for West Belfast. My family live in Belfast. I’m there as often as I can be. If I get elected, this [Louth] is where I’ll live,” he said.
Mr Adams said he would not buy a house in the constituency, but would rent if elected.
He also said he had received notification yesterday for the supplementary register and would be able to vote in the constituency in the next general election.
Retiring Government Minister and Louth TD Dermot Ahern said there would be an “ABA” (anybody but Adams) vote in the constituency.
However, councillor Thomas Sharkey, who said he had supported Mr Adams’s candidature from the beginning, said the “ABA” votes would have been directed instead at Mr Ahern, had he stood.