Gerry Adams elected in West Belfast 1983

The British government, still stunned by the strong showing of Sinn Féin in the October 1982 Assembly elections, were further shaken when Gerry Adams resoundingly won the West Belfast seat in the Westminster election of 9 June 1983. 

Addressing thousands of Republicans later that month at the annual Wolfe Tone commemoration in Bodenstown, Gerry Adams said, “We need a living political ideology, based firmly on republican principles and always open to refinement, reappraisal, and self-criticism. We need to make our politics the politics of ordinary people.”