Sinn Fein’s president hits Hub

Adams will also do something that Governor Deval Patrick declined to do: speak to the all-male Clover Club, a fraternal organization of predominantly Irish-Americans. Patrick canceled a scheduled appearance before the group in December, citing its refusal to allow female members. Club members say that Adams has proved a bigger draw than the governor.

Rita O’Hare, Sinn Fein’s representative in the United States and an aide to Adams, said Adams accepted Clover Club president Joe Leary’s invitation to speak because of Leary’s charitable work in Ireland, north and south. Leary heads the Irish American Partnership, a Boston-based charity that has been active on both sides of the sectarian and political divide in Northern Ireland.

Clover Club secretary Jack Quinlan declined comment, but one club member said that about 650 men will attend tonight’s dinner at the Park Plaza Hotel, about 100 more than were scheduled to attend the dinner at which Patrick canceled his appearance. The private club’s men-only policy has angered some who see it as exclusionary and discriminatory, but O’Hare said Adams wanted to recognize many club members, including politicians and philanthropists who have given much to Ireland, north and south.

O’Hare said Adams will also attend state Senator Jack Hart’s breakfast and political roast before marching in tomorrow’s parade.

“Gerry always had a lot of supporters in South Boston and other parts of Boston,’’ O’Hare said, “so this is a way of saying thanks to Senator Hart and his predecessors,’’ including Stephen Lynch, now a congressman, and William Bulger, the former president of the state Senate.

Adams has visited Boston many times since 1994, when President Clinton overturned a longtime ban against Sinn Fein members because of their support of the Irish Republican Army.

“There are many people in Boston, including a lot of politicians, who were very supportive of Gerry, Sinn Fein, and the peace process, so he’s looking forward to saying thanks,’’ O’Hare said.

Several years ago, Adams marched in Holyoke’s St. Patrick’s Day parade, to thank US Representative Richard Neal, a Springfield Democrat, for supporting the Irish peace process.

This year, Adams and other politicians from Northern Ireland will be feted by President Obama in Washington on St. Patrick’s Day.

Adams is credited with helping to persuade the IRA to end its violent campaign and seek an end to the partition of Ireland through peaceful, democratic methods.

But the last few months have been difficult for Adams. Last year, he disclosed that his father, an Irish republican icon, had sexually abused some members of his family. His niece, meanwhile, has accused her father, Gerry Adams’s brother, of sexually abusing her as a child. And most recently, it was disclosed that his wife was being treated for cancer.

But the last week saw Adams and his party take part in the transfer of policing powers from the British Parliament in London to the power-sharing local government in Belfast.

Policing is seen by some as the last major political obstacle in Northern Ireland, where the conflict spun out of control in the late 1960s. .

Kevin Cullen can be reached at cullen@globe.com.