THE BOSTON COLLEGE TAPES | BIZARRE TWIST AS PEACE PROCESS CRITICS CHANGE TACK

Ed Moloney and Anthony McIntyre ‘fear for Peace Process’

BY JOHN HEDGES

» BY JOHN HEDGES

THE US COURT-ROOM BID to seize ‘confidential’ interviews with former IRA members in the Boston College project headed by Ed Moloney and ‘dissident republican’ Anthony McIntyre has taken a bizarre turn with the arch-critics of the Peace Process saying they now fear their work could threaten the Peace Process if handed over to British security agencies or the PSNI.
Moloney and McIntyre wrote in the ‘Boston Globe’ at the end of August “this attempt to violate Boston College’s files could be immensely destructive to the Peace Process in Northern Ireland”. Danny Morrison, the former Sinn Féin Publicity Director who is now a writer and commentator, has described the Moloney/McIntyre article as “rank hypocrisy”, given their continuous opposition to the Peace Process and outright attacks on Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams.
The case centres on a series of 30 to 50 interviews conducted with republican and loyalist former activists for Boston College as part of its Irish Studies Programme. Some of the material, most notably an interview with former IRA Volunteer Brendan Hughes, was used by Ed Moloney last year for a TV programme accompanied by a book, both titled ‘Voices from the Grave’. Brendan Hughes claimed that Gerry Adams gave the order for the IRA execution and secret burial in 1972 of Jean McConville, a mother of ten whom Hughes steadfastly maintained was an informer for the British Army.
The US legal action also particularly seeks a Boston College interview with former IRA member Dolours Price in the apparent belief that her contribution will add to a case against Adams.
Gerry Adams has denied the allegations.
The TV documentary and Ed Moloney’s book, whose source material was the Boston College interviews, led to a series of worldwide stories about the case just as Gerry Adams resigned as MP for West Belfast and ran for election to the Dáil. The story was widely viewed as a bid to damage Adams’s chances.
Interviewees were apparently given assurances that what they said would be kept confidential until after their deaths and used for academic study, a promise that looks like it will not stand up in any court. Colleges and universities conducting academic research into political conflicts around the globe have been thrown into turmoil by this case. Moloney and McIntyre are now staging a belated rearguard action to try and salvage some credibility as they and Boston College come under increasing pressure.
Ed Moloney is described as “the director of the Belfast Project at Boston College; Anthony McIntyre was the project’s lead researcher on the IRA”.
Writing in the ‘Boston Globe’ on 26th August in an article bearing Moloney’s and McIntyre’s joint byline and headlined “Fishing in BC’s archives”, the pair said:
“What is happening is essentially an unwarranted fishing expedition into the college archives.”
Moloney and McIntyre wrote that Secretary of State Owen Paterson “has expressed embarrassment” at the move. They added: “[The subpoenas] originate from a small number of PSNI detectives who can hardly be surprised if their motives are questioned. After all, the murder at the centre of this case was largely ignored by the police for the best part of 40 years. And even when Price’s newspaper interview was published in 2010 they did nothing. A whole year passed before action was taken.
“When the police service did move, it was within weeks of Sinn Féin’s remarkable electoral comeback in the general election in the Republic of Ireland. In that election, Gerry Adams was elected to the Dublin parliament and is well-placed to lead his party into government next time. Only then did the PSNI crank into action. Was that just a coincidence?”
Moloney and McIntyre continued:
“The police and the British authorities in Northern Ireland do not come to this case with clean hands. Their track record in covering up official involvement in some of the most shocking murders of the Irish Troubles is well known, and they cannot be allowed to present themselves in America as an unblemished force attempting to get to the bottom of an awful killing.”
The pair ended with the warning that this case “could affect the stability of the Peace Process in Ireland”.
Long-standing Irish-American commentator Niall O’Dowd was not impressed with Moloney’s and McIntyre’s concern about the stability of the Peace Process, something which O’Dowd has actually been involved in practically supporting.
Over on the Irish Central website, O’Dowd’s piece carried the strapline “Boston College played major role in witch-hunt against Gerry Adams — Hired anti-Adams researchers to lead oral history project”. He continued:
“The ‘Boston Globe’ columnist, Kevin Cullen, correctly identified this latest effort as a witch-hunt against Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams in an attempt to link him to a 1972 murder in Belfast.
“The college has been vainly protesting that it will not reveal the oral histories to feds, acting on behalf of the British Government, but they have very little credibility on this issue.”
O’Dowd noted that “apparently the rule of confidentiality or immediate release of information from sources did not apply to Ed Moloney”.
O’Dowd added that “Moloney has written repeatedly in hostile fashion about Adams, a fact that Boston College conveniently ignored when they hired him”.
Boston College cannot wash its hands of its involvement in the Moloney/McIntyre debacle. Niall O’Dowd pointed out:
“Professor Thomas Hachey, Executive Director of the Irish Studies Programme at BC, helpfully wrote the introduction for Moloney’s book, very much tying the college into its conclusions.
“Moloney clearly felt he was entitled to quote from the confidential archives at length in what seemed a vain attempt to link Adams to the 1972 Jean McConville murder and Boston College went right along with it.” But that wasn’t all, O’Dowd said:
“It gets worse. Moloney’s lead researcher and interviewer was Anthony McIntyre, a leading dissident republican who also had a deep loathing for Gerry Adams and conducted the interview with Hughes.
“Was this the kind of unbiased historical perspective and information gathering that Boston College should have insisted upon?
“No, of course not. Right from the beginning the aim was clearly to try and get negative information on Gerry Adams and Boston College played a full role, however unwittingly or wittingly, perhaps.”
Now it has landed them “in a hornet’s nest worth of trouble”, O’Dowd said.
“No doubt seeing what Moloney and McIntyre were able to put together, some key security figure in Northern Ireland wanted their attempt to get at Adams too, and settle some scores.
“They now have the US Attorney’s office doing their bidding and seeking to get all tapes released from republican sources.
“Boston College is now spluttering that they should be allowed hold the tapes confidential – even though they allowed the release of Hughes’s testimony to Moloney.”
O’Dowd referred the Moloney/McIntyre article in the ‘Boston Globe’.
“In an ironic twist, Moloney and McIntyre wrote an op-ed in the ‘Boston Globe’ Tuesday saying release of the tapes could damage the Peace Process. Stable door and bolted horse come to mind.”
Danny Morrison was more scathing of the Moloney/McIntyre article. In a reply to the ‘Boston Globe’ article, he denounced it as “rank hypocrisy”. He said:
“Ed Moloney and Anthony McIntyre have every right to protest on ethical grounds against efforts by the British to subpoena Boston College to hand over part of its archives. These archives contain potentially incriminating taped evidence by IRA Volunteers about unresolved killings during the Irish conflict, a project which both men administered on behalf of the college. But for them to claim that the release of the material ‘could be immensely destructive to the Peace Process in Northern Ireland’ and appears aimed at damaging Gerry Adams and Sinn Féin’s ‘remarkable electoral comeback in the general election in the Republic of Ireland’ is rank hypocrisy.
“It is undermined by Moloney having published a book based on the testimony of one of the project participants, the late IRA Volunteer Brendan Hughes, the whole thrust of which was to damage Gerry Adams, according to many respected historians, reviewers and commentators.
“In fact, Moloney is actually now contradicting himself because his mantra was to berate other Irish journalists for putting the Peace Process before their duty. He accused journalists of not challenging Adams and Sinn Féin over their shortcomings and alleged links with the IRA, regardless what effect their reporting/exposures would have on the fledgling power-sharing institutions.
“Nor is it believable for both men and some in Boston College to claim that their lives would be in danger from the IRA were these archives to be released. Moloney never baulked at that prospect when he published his book and McIntyre spends most of his free time goading Adams and the republican leadership for having ‘sold out’!”
The case, as they say, continues.