Response to Boston College decision

“We are naturally disappointed but we confidently expect BC to take up Judge Young’s implied invitation to lodge an appeal. One way or another this fight will go on. There are very important issues at stake – legal & political – that could adversely affect vital and essential US interests, both domestic & international. Not least among the latter is the Good Friday Agreement in which President Clinton, Senator Mitchell and virtually the entire American body politic invested so much energy, time, effort and not least their personal & national prestige to bring a seemingly intractable and bloody conflict to an end.

“As anyone familiar with the background to this case can attest, the enforcement of these subpoenas has the real potential to create an immensely destabilising political crisis in Northern Ireland. It comes at a time when the British government is refusing to properly investigate allegations of murder connived at by its own security and intelligence services. The double standards involved in all this will send a clear and unmistakable message to everyone in Northern Ireland, a message that reverberates down through the sad, tragic and bloody history of Ireland’s relationship with Britain.

“It would be an event of extraordinary irony that a decision of a court in a country which expended so much political capital to secure peace in Ireland could threaten all that was achieved over so many long and difficult years. Given Boston College’s long record of nurturing a resolution to the conflict as well as the solemn assurances to protect confidentiality given to those involved in this oral history project, we therefore look forward to an early announcement of the college’s intention to appeal.”

– Ed Moloney, Belfast Project director and Anthony McIntyre, lead researcher for the Belfast Project