Contrasting views of the Adams arrest for Irish Americans

Jason Walsh grew up in the Upper Falls and witnessed as a child the horrors of the “Death on the Rock” events in Milltown cemetery. Here he presents a more authentic and reasoned assessment of recent days in the Christian Science Monitor than what the American audience is  used to.  Gerry Adams says he was never a member of the IRA, let alone a member of its ruling army council. Few believe him, and he knows that few believe him, but …

Read more…

Reliance on the Boston tapes would be a long term mistake

I have no particular sympathy for this frail 77 year old grandfather. There may indeed be short term gains in bringing the case to court. The reliability of the Boston tapes as evidence will be tested. Will corroboration in any form be produced? If the tapes are regarded as sufficient in this case what are the implications of the others referred to, including Gerry Adams? Like lots  of other people I have copious extracts from the tapes and an account …

Read more…

Secrets From Belfast: a definitive guide to the Troubles (troubled?) oral history project

Beth McMurtrie has published an extensive and well-researched article for The Chronicle of Higher Education. It examines how the Belfast Project oral history project at Boston College was established and how it has fallen apart in recent years following the PSNI’s request for access to the archive (two months after the British government had “given the college highly sensitive papers related to the disarmament process, to be kept locked away for 30 years”). What sets Beth’s article apart from much …

Read more…

The political vacuum is compromising the standing of the PSNI

When criticism is made from both directions it’s often said that the subject of the criticism must be doing something right.  I suspect that’s what Matt Baggott is thinking now over the rows about recent arrests on both sides of the divide. There is an alternative view of course; he may be getting it wrong across the board. Either way a small storm of whataboutery is blowing. It must not get out of hand.  Willie Frazer is a hero to …

Read more…

Death of Dolours Price – opens up possibility that her taped oral history will be published (or not)

Dolours Price – sister, mother, bomber, prisoner and a thorn in Gerry Adams’ side – died in her Malahide home on Wednesday night. The Guardian’s Ireland correspondent Henry McDonald writes: Price was involved in a car bombing at the Old Bailey in 1973, which injured more than 200 people and may have led to one person’s death of heart failure. The ex-IRA prisoner, who went on hunger strike with her sister Marian in the 1970s and was subjected to forcefeeding …

Read more…

Judge rules oral history tape release would not “materially increase the risk to his life or that of his family”

This morning Mr Justice Treacy rejected Anthony McIntyre’s application for a judicial review in the latest attempt to prevent the PSNI from accessing republican interview transcripts from the Boston College oral history project. It is thought that the PSNI team investigating the 1972 murder of Jean McConville are behind the UK government request to get hold of the tapes of interviews with Dolours Price which are currently held in the US. Two weeks ago, McIltyre’s fellow researcher Ed Moloney (who …

Read more…