‘Right to remember past’ as it happened

COMMENT: ‘Right to remember past’ as it happened
by Dr Aaron Edwards
News Letter

‘Born in this island, maimed by history
and creed-infected, by my father taught
the stubborn habit of unfettered thought’.

So runs John Hewitt’s poem The Dilemma, a bitter indictment of how Irish republicans had requisitioned the past in the service of their narrow political project.

We are left in little doubt at the end of The Dilemma that the celebrated Ulster bard found himself ‘caught in the crossfire of their false campaign’.

The arrest and detention of Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams in the ongoing PSNI investigation into the murder of Jean McConville in 1972 is notable for how it has exposed the republican ability to speak from two sides of their mouth on the past.

By calling for inquiries into the use of lethal force by the state (accounting for 10 per cent of troubles-related deaths – republicans were responsible for 60 per cent and loyalists 30 per cent respectively) they seem prepared to hear everyone else’s ‘truth’ except their own.

As with Hewitt’s poem, we are condemned to bear witness to the growing sanitisation of history and the excusing away of violent nationalism’s worst excesses.

It was that other inconsolable sceptic of nationalism George Orwell who warned us that ‘the nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them’.

It appears that history has become an unwelcome handmaiden to the Northern Ireland peace process because of its ability to throw up uncomfortable questions.

One has only to consult the fêted Haass proposals to see how a universalist position on the illegality of terrorist violence has been buried under a thicket of bureaucratic ‘newspeak’.

So how are we to avoid the mistakes which led to the murders of almost 4,000 people and the maiming of ten times as many more?

Well, for one thing, as citizens of a much-larger liberal democracy, we have the ‘right to remember’ the past as it really happened. In this, historians can play an invaluable role in helping to extinguish the most inflammatory lies about the past.

Although it may seem like inauspicious times for historians to debunk myths about the past – in light of the collapse of Boston College’s ill-fated Belfast Project – it is impossible to side-step uncomfortable truths about the past. Haass’s proposals may be imperfect but they at least hold out the prospect of working through the past in a meaningful way.

One of Haass’s recommendations is for a Historical Timeline Group to determine the raw facts of what happened between 1968 and 1998. If nothing else, historians can provide much-needed contextualisation here so as to ensure the integrity of the past is preserved.

Moreover, this might also facilitate the necessary political shift towards a shared understanding of the past as a warning about the dangers of violence and to reinforce the morally-acceptable position that it must never be permitted to happen again.

Dr Aaron Edwards is a historian, writer and lecturer. His most recent book is Mad Mitch’s Tribal Law (Mainstream Publishing, 2014).

IRA Interviewee: Boston College Has Not Lived Up to the Declarations it Made

Boston College has not lived up to the declarations it made
Tommy Gorman
The Irish News
May 16 2014

BELFAST – Some years ago, I was asked to take part in a project which, it was hoped, would help enhance understanding of the decades of political bloodletting that blighted our land and people.

I felt the plan to construct the archive by getting the thoughts and experiences of former combatants, and to examine the factors that led to people like us deciding to risk all in pursuance of our differing causes, would be valuable and instructive to future generations who may want to know what it was all about and hopefully help ensure it doesn’t happen again.

And with eyes wide open and no hesitation I offered to help in any way I could.

I did the interviews in which I tried to describe the feeling of the community and the mood within the republican movement when the conflict was at different stages as well the prison struggle.

I didn’t speak of any other volunteers just as I didn’t expect them to speak of me. They were, after all, personal reminiscences from a very bloody period in our history.

Unfortunately, those at Boston College have not lived up to declarations made at the onset of the project in regards to confidentiality and assurances that the archive would remain secure from any external snooping.

The resulting media frenzy has allowed Shinner spinners and semi-literate graffitists to go into overdrive in attacking those of us among the many interviewees who don’t agree that what is being peddled by Sinn Fein as ‘the great leap forward’ is anything of the sort.

In socio-economic, constitutional and inter-community development the opposite is true.

With the recent exposure of post-ceasefire gun running by those ‘fully committed to the peace process and support for the PSNI’ we all should be dubious as to any excuse offered as to why, in this period of peace, there is a need for guns that are untraceable with no history or connection to any person or group.

One thing is sure: there is no way they are to be turned on the old enemy.

In all of our actions we must always strive to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable by refusing to be silenced.

An American oral history project makes us fear for our lives, say former IRA members

An American oral history project makes us fear for our lives, say former IRA members
By Jenny McCartney
The Telegraph
May 15th, 2014

If you want to know whether fear of IRA reprisals remains a powerful force in Northern Ireland, look no further. A former IRA prisoner, Richard O’Rawe, along with three others, is suing Boston College for its failure to protect confidential interviews about his time in the IRA. He is doing so, he made clear, because of the intimidation he has now endured as a result of going on the record.

The interview was recorded as part of the Boston College project, launched in 2001, an oral history project which recorded a large number of interviews with former members of the IRA and loyalist paramilitaries. Participants were assured that the material would only become public posthumously or with their permission.

In fact, Northern Irish police investigating the murder of Jean McConville, a mother of 10 abducted, killed and “disappeared” by the IRA in 1972, won access to ten of the recordings following a legal battle which went to the US Supreme Court. The project was linked in many reports to the recent arrest and questioning of Gerry Adams.

Mr O’Rawe is arguing that since Boston College allegedly did not warn him of this possible outcome, he has suffered “serious intimidation and distress together with reputational damage as is evidenced by recent widespread graffiti appearing in West Belfast.”

The experience of “intimidation and distress”, of course, has been shared by the organisers of the project, Dr Anthony McIntyre, a former Provisional IRA member himself, and the journalist Ed Moloney, both of whom opposed the handing over of the tapes.

Dr McIntyre in particular – who lives with his family in County Louth – told one newspaper that “the hate has been ratcheted up since the Adams arrest.” Among other things, he said that “Danny Morrison [the former Sinn Fein publicity director] has labelled us ‘touts’”.

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For those not versed in the parlance of Northern Ireland, “tout” is a uniquely dangerous and toxic word. The label of “tout”, ironically, was exactly the term that the IRA originally used to justify the murder and disappearance of Jean McConville in 1972 (a subsequent police investigation found no basis for its accusation).

During the Troubles, the IRA “punishment” for so-called “touts” was death. Even throughout the “peace process”, indeed, the IRA murdered, or attempted to murder, individuals whom it accused of being “touts”, with barely a squeak of protest from the British or Irish governments. In 1999 it killed Eamon Collins, an emotionally complicated former Provisional IRA man who had written a book called “Killing Rage” which exposed the squalid inner workings of the IRA and his own conflicted relationship with the organisation. It inspired fury within the IRA. Graffiti went up on walls, and one day Collins – who had stubbornly continued to live in Newry – was found battered to death in a ditch.

In the same year, the former police agent Martin McGartland, who had infiltrated the IRA, narrowly managed to survive an IRA attack in England in which he was shot six times at close range.

McIntyre does not share a similar history to either man, but – even though he and Moloney vocally opposed the handing over of the Boston College archives – by its very existence the project has clearly challenged the omerta around IRA activities which Sinn Fein wishes to remain.

The application of the word “tout” to the Boston project has been implicitly endorsed by those at the party’s very highest level. In between the photographs of ice creams and rubber duckies which feature heavily on his Twitter feed, Gerry Adams retweeted Danny Morrison’s remark: “Boston College Touting Programme RIP.” The official signal to supporters of how the project should be viewed will not be missed.

I understand the desire of Jean McConville’s family to have access to evidence that might establish who was responsible for her murder. I also understand the desire of McIntyre and Moloney to protect their sources. The former is about the delivery of justice, the latter about the urge to establish and safeguard historical testimony in contentious circumstances. In this instance, the two things have been placed in direct opposition: the problem with this particular historical project has been that the history is still live. Boston College has now reportedly offered to return the tapes to the participants: historical record will be the poorer for it.

My political views undoubtedly differ from McIntyre’s in a number of fundamental ways, but I believe he is correct when he says that the Boston project offered “an alternative to the political and legal fiction constructed for its ability to facilitate the peace process rather than produce accuracy.” I also suspect that there are allegations within those tapes which would be embarrassing, not only to the IRA and the loyalist paramilitaries, but to the British government. And I believe that he and his family have a right to live free from fear and harassment.

Martin McGuinness recently said that he believes Gerry Adams when Adams says he was never a member of the IRA: with the official Sinn Fein view of history, we are quite clearly now in the heady realm of the surreal. The Sinn Fein leadership, in fact, has proved consistently hostile to any former IRA members who challenge its version of history, which is commonly defined by a combination of selective denial and airbrushed sentimentality. Yet what have we seen and heard in recent weeks, when Sinn Fein was rattled by Adams’ arrest?

Bobby Storey, an alleged former IRA intelligence director, told a rally in West Belfast “we haven’t gone away, you know” (echoing the famous 1995 Adams line about the IRA). Michael McConville, whom the IRA beat and threatened into silence about his mother’s abduction when he was a terrified 11-year-old, said that as an adult he had told Gerry Adams the names of those who abducted his mother and Adams had personally warned him to prepare for a “backlash” if he made the names public. Mr McConville understandably said: “I took it as a threat”.

The IRA called Mrs McConville a “tout” in 1972, and we saw what human misery flowed from that. Today the Sinn Fein leadership is knowingly calling those involved in the Boston project exactly the same name. The words “Boston College touts” and “In-former Republicans” have appeared on walls on Belfast’s Falls Road, echoed without censure on Adams’ Twitter account.

They are not there by accident: everyone involved, including Adams, is acutely aware of the historical charge such names carry. As the Sinn Fein president canvasses for the European elections, glad-handing passers-by in the sunshine, surely voters, academics and journalists alike should ask him publicly to condemn any threats that lurk in the shadows against those involved in the Boston project. Otherwise, one might draw the conclusion that Adams is perfectly at ease with them.

Jenny McCartney is a columnist for the Sunday Telegraph. On her blog, she offers hard-hitting analysis of social and political concerns and a witty deconstruction of modern celebrity culture.

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‘Boston College Touts’ Threat Discussed in Dáil Éireann

‘Boston College Touts’ Threat Discussed in Dáil Éireann
Dáil Debate 13 May 2014
Ceisteanna – Questions (Resumed)

Full debate begins here: Taoiseach’s Meetings and Engagements

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Excerpts relating to Boston College oral history archive participants under threat:

Deputy Micheál Martin: In terms of the questions on the Ballymurphy murders, there is no doubt that innocent people were murdered by British soldiers in Ballymurphy in August of 1971. Forty-three years later, the official account has not been corrected and the families have been denied the right of being told exactly how these murders happened. The British Government, as the Taoiseach said, through the Northern Secretary, recently asserted that there should be no review of the murders because of what she called “the balance of public interest”. This goes to the nub of the ongoing detachment and mishandling of the peace process and reconciliation generally. It speaks of a policy that suggests that everything has been achieved, all the big things have been achieved and we do not need to deal with these issues. I met the Ballymurphy group some years ago and it seemed to me that, at the very least, an independent panel of investigators, with some international dimension attached to it, should have been established to report on the murders, such is the appalling nature of what happened.

It needs more than just the Taoiseach articulating here that it is very disappointing that the British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland said this. Was there any consultation between the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and the British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Ms Theresa Villiers, MP, prior to the decision not to set up a panel to investigate those murders?

While I strongly support the need for this, it equally has to be said that the family of Jean McConville is also entitled to justice and truth in respect of her murder a year later. Both cases show that different sides are trying to be selective in their approach to the past. The British Government will pursue one case but will say there is no need to deal with the murder of 11 people in 1971 because of some obscure balance of public interest reasons. Likewise, I do not believe one can deny the family of a mother of ten who was murdered in 1972 the right to truth, justice and information, and yet Sinn Féin would probably want that denied.

The breakdown of the Haass talks is related and the decision to take a hands-off approach to that up to now has failed. I see from recent comments that that has been accepted and that there is a need for intervention. What steps does the Taoiseach intend to take regarding the Ballymurphy question? How does he intend to get the British Government to change its mind on pursuing the establishment of an independent panel to investigate the murders?

Regarding the Boston College tapes of interviews relating to the McConville case, a disturbing trend is emerging whereby those with anything to do with the Boston College project are being labelled as touts, and as greedy and reckless. A hate campaign is being developed by foot soldiers within the Sinn Féin movement, as far as I can ascertain, to target people. Regardless of whether one likes it, I believe the people involved in the Boston College project saw it as an historical project. They did not envisage the British prosecuting authorities seeking release of the tapes, Boston College being acquiescent, to say the very least, in opposing that until it was forced into a position where now certain tapes relating to the prosecution of that case have been released.

Now a hate campaign has developed where those responsible for conceiving the project and doing the interviews are being targeted in language that is very dangerous. The Taoiseach might have seen recent articles in which Mr. Ivor Bell is called the “Boston tout”. People are under pressure to ‘come clean’ about the contents of the controversial Boston tapes. It is very sinister and almost sets people up for attack. It makes people very insecure and anxious. There should be no toleration of it. It is extremely important that it is nipped in the bud and that all responsible people would deal with that. I ask for the Taoiseach’s comments on the implications of that. […]

The Taoiseach, Enda Kenny: […] As I understand this, the number of people who have been questioned about this is six or seven – Deputy Adams will know that – and that one of those is being charged with conspiracy by association. Whether that moves through to the PPS to a further stage is something that I cannot predict. I think everybody in this country is haunted by the picture of Jean McConville and a number of her children – that black and white photograph – which has appeared thousands of times over the years. I know from meeting people who have lost loved ones at sea or whatever, through a tragedy or just an accident, that a sense of closure, not being able to say where they are and who was responsible and that justice be seen to be done is very powerful.

I agree with a comment made by Deputy Martin in regard to the Boston College tapes that there seems to be a sort of campaign that these are not valid, authentic or real contributions. Somebody who knows something about this said to me that some of the contributors were either dependant on alcohol or requiring of substance use all the time. I suppose the old saying in vino veritas is still valid. These are part of, and a background to, the problem we have with the past and the legacy of what that means. I share Uachtaráin Higgins’s response, when commenting on this, I think, in Chicago, that nobody should be above law and that we cannot have one law for one and a different one for somebody else.

If the gardaí did not have the intelligence and communications they have available to them and the sharing of knowledge with the PSNI, this incident at Finnstown House recently could have been very serious, with the possibility of international repercussions for Ireland of the most serious kind, and the loss of life.

The issues arising over the last period in regard to the question of the past, parades and so on goes back to a comment made by the Tánaiste that there is a short opportunity after the electoral process is finished here and before the marching season gets into full swing in which we should perhaps refocus on what it is we may be able to do here. When I look at what is happening in Derry and I see the excitement, the expansion of the economy, the jobs being created and the view of the future where people really want to get on with the business of providing for their children, opportunities and so on, I see a difference between that and what is happening in places in Belfast. That is regrettable. I saw the television pictures, and Deputy Adams was involved. Perhaps there is an opportunity here to refocus, as two Governments, to help the Northern Ireland Executive and the parties in Northern Ireland. President Clinton said that we have to finish the job, it cannot be finished for them, it has got to come from inside and we have to give them all the encouragement we can. […]

Deputy Gerry Adams: […] I return to the issue of victims. I will conclude on this matter. Irish Republicans have acknowledged many times the hurt caused during the war. I would welcome if Teachta Martin said “This is Sinn Féin” but he uses sleveen, sleekit, weasel words such as “It appears to be Sinn Féin”, “As far as I can see”, “It appears to me”, and “As far as I have been able to ascertain”. Let me be very clear about this; all the victims deserve justice – every single one, particularly the victims of the Irish Republican Army. I say that as a republican because I cannot rail against injustices inflicted by the British or others if I do not take the same consistent position in terms of those who were bereaved by people whose legitimacy I recognised. Both the Taoiseach and the leader of Fianna Fáil recognised the legitimacy of the IRA cause, but in another decade. Somewhere along the line they became revisionist on the issue. I wish to be very clear that, first, it is the right thing to do morally; second, it is the right thing to do for the peace process and; third, I understand because I am from that community. That is where I come from. […]

Deputy Micheál Martin: […] I wish to make straight remarks and not weasel words. One of the questions I put to the Taoiseach was that the past is a key issue, but what is going on right now with regard to the past is, in my view, reprehensible. A hate campaign has developed against those involved in the Boston exercise. Those involved, those who did the taping and contributed to the tapes, genuinely believed they would not be released until after the participants were dead. Sinn Féin has an issue with this as do others but it is unacceptable that on the front page of the Sunday World one reads that ‘Boston tout’ Ivor Bell is under pressure to ‘come clean’ on the contents of the controversial Boston tapes.

There is graffiti now on the walls in the North about the touts, the informers and the greed. The salaries of those who actually did the interviews is out as though it represents some astronomical amount of money and that it was all for greed. Comparisons are being made between those who were involved in the project and those who cracked under pressure in Castlereagh and became informers and who were dealt with by the then IRA.

One gets good cop and bad cop all the time. On the one hand, one gets the nice presentation but on the other hand, this is going on right now. I have been contacted about this and people are worried about their lives. People are worried about the security aspect to it. It should be condemned and Sinn Féin should make sure that anyone associated with the party who is involved in this regard should stop and cease, no matter how uncomfortable or inconvenient it is. While the leader of Sinn Féin will accuse others of revisionism, I put it to the Taoiseach that it is absurd revisionism to suggest that any just war was going on over those 30-odd years from 1974. Many ex-combatants would say there was no justification, in retrospect, for anything that went on after Sunningdale. There was no great war, there was a war and terror and people were killed who did not need to be for far too long. It went on for years and years and now we all are being cosied to accept language around conflicts, war, sides and all that. Too many appalling atrocities were carried out that cannot be justified in any shape or form.

Moreover, I make the point to the Taoiseach that the peace process belongs to the Irish people, not to the Taoiseach, to me or indeed to the Sinn Féin Party. Yet, when someone gets arrested who the Sinn Féin Party does not like getting arrested, its members will organise protests outside the police station as they did in the case of the prominent arrest of one of its members with regard to the McCartney murder, when 300 people turned up outside a police station and when a member of the policing board, namely, Gerry Kelly, said this was an outrage. When they want to threaten the peace process, they will do it. The same happened in recent weeks, because Sinn Féin did not like a particular arrest. The peace process now was under threat and policing support was under threat. One cannot have it both ways; one either supports it or one does not. One cannot just switch up, switch off or switch down the temperature when it suits and the temperature was switched up deliberately two weeks ago. No one should be under any doubt or illusion about that. The mask slipped for a few days but it did so deliberately. The word to the authorities was were they to keep going, they would not have a peace process. Were they to keep going, they would not have support for policing in Northern Ireland. […]

Deputy Gerry Adams: Briefly, and I wish to come back to the Taoiseach’s remarks, no one involved with Sinn Féin is engaged in the graffiti, the wall daubing or the perceived or real threats against anyone. This is extremely clear and I condemn these threats and everyone has stated more times than enough that people must be able to go about their business without any fear of any threat whatsoever. Moreover, for the information of Teachta Martin, the Haass proposals include the right of families to seek legal redress if they wish and Sinn Féin supports that concept. One must understand here that there are multiple narratives. In the same way as there are the Fine Gael, Labour Party and Fianna Fáil narratives, in more recent times there are the Sinn Féin and the republican narratives, as well as Unionist, British Army and IRA narratives. We would get some sense of our history were we willing to lay all those narratives side by side as opposed to undermining any of them. Moreover, for the record, no generation of the IRA had a mandate, not in 1916, not during the Tan war and not during the Civil War or since. However, every generation of the IRA had sufficient endorsement of enough people to continue, including in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s until thankfully, the war was brought to a close. […]

The Taoiseach, Enda Kenny: […] I must state that when I saw the people presenting and preparing the mural of Deputy Adams in Belfast, as is their right, comments were made there by some people to the effect that “We have not gone away“. Who are the “we” and to whom they were referring when they said “We have not gone away”? These clearly are supporters of Sinn Féin and I am unsure what interpretation to put on this. I hope we can move this forward. Certainly, I assure the Deputy that from the point of view of the Government, there certainly is no lack of interest in this regard. Both Governments will be happy to co-operate with, work with and encourage the parties if they can see there is an opportunity to move forward any of these issues to a point where a better outcome can be achieved.

Boston College to be sued by republicans over Troubles tapes

Boston College to be sued by republicans over Troubles tapes

Richard O’Rawe says controversy has left him feeling ‘intimidated and distressed’
Gerry Moriarty
Irish Times
Tue, May 13, 2014

Former IRA hunger striker Richard O’Rawe and three ex-republican paramilitaries are to sue Boston College over the oral history of the Troubles project, their Belfast solicitor has disclosed.

Solicitor Kevin Winters in the latest twist to the troubled Boston tapes project said that Mr O’Rawe and three other unnamed republicans had instructed him to take legal action against the American college.

Mr Winters said that “Boston College touts” graffiti that had appeared recently in several parts of west Belfast had made Mr O’Rawe, the lead participant in the legal case, suffer “serious intimidation and distress”.

Other graffiti included references such as “sort out Boston College touts” and “informer republicans”, he added.

“Mr O’Rawe engaged with the Boston project in good faith in terms of making a positive contribution to the historical narrative of the conflict,” said Mr Winters.

The solicitor said however that due to the Boston tapes controversy over the 1972 IRA murder of Jean McConville, in which Mr O’Rawe was not involved, that Mr O’Rawe’s taped interviews to the project along with other interviews were handed over to the PSNI.

Mr O’Rawe in a statement said, “My contribution never mentioned anything at all about the disappearance and murder of Jean McConville, because I know nothing about it.”

“Despite that, the police were still able to get my recordings. They should never have been allowed to do that,” he added.

“I blame Boston College for the mess and I want them held accountable for putting me in this position,” said Mr O’Rawe.

He alleges that he entered a contract with Boston College that did not advise him that his evidence might be subjected to release under a court order. He also alleges there was no proper oversight of the project and that there was misrepresentation and breach of confidentiality together with negligence on the failure of the college to advise that his testimony could be subject to court orders. He also alleges reputational damage.

College spokesman Jack Dunn said no legal papers have been issued against the university and he declined “to speculate” on any legal action that may arise. He said the participants were interviewed by former IRA prisoner, historian and project researcher Anthony McIntyre.

“If they were given assurances that their interviews would be protected, those assurances came from Mr McIntyre, who was in no position to make them. No one from Boston College was ever in contact with the interviewees,” he said.

Mr McIntyre said there was ample evidence that senior academics from Boston College directly involved in the project gave assurances that those participating were doing so under the guarantee of “strict confidentiality”.

“There is a clear paper trail to this effect for everyone to see,” said Mr McIntyre.

Mr O’Rawe is a former IRA prisoner who alleged that in 1981 the IRA army council blocked a deal that possibly could have saved the lives of six of the 10 hunger strikers who died in the fast – a claim rejected by Sinn Féin.

DETAILS: Ex-IRA prisoner Richard O’Rawe: I’ll sue Boston College for handing over tapes

Ex-IRA prisoner Richard O’Rawe: I’ll sue Boston College for handing over tapes
Liam Clarke
Belfast Telegraph
13 May 2014

Former IRA man Richard O’Rawe is intending to take legal action over the handover of parts of his interview

A former IRA prisoner is to sue Boston College after it handed over parts of interviews he recorded to police investigating the murder of Jean McConville, it can be revealed.

Richard O’Rawe was one of more than 40 paramilitaries who gave their testimony about their role in the Troubles to an oral history project for Boston College.

The interviews were given on the basis that their contents would not be revealed until after their deaths, but after a protracted transatlantic legal battle the PSNI secured access to a number of interviews.

In the wake of the handover of the tapes, police have arrested a number of republicans in relation to the McConville murder –including Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams. He denies involvement.

The PSNI was supposed to be handed only those recordings where the 1972 abduction and murder of west Belfast mother-of-10 Mrs McConville was discussed.

However, solicitor Kevin Winters said that the Massachusetts university had handed over a recording of O’Rawe – despite the fact that Mrs McConville was not discussed on it.

O’Rawe was active in Ballymurphy in 1972.

Mrs McConville was abducted from her home in Divis flats, at the other end of the Falls Road, by a separate IRA company. Accused of being an informer, she was taken away, interrogated, shot dead and buried in secret.

Republican involvement was a closely guarded secret for years and O’Rawe knew nothing of it while he was active in the organisation.

He still lives in west Belfast, where graffiti has appeared in nine separate locations across the carea branding those who gave interviews to Boston College as “touts”.

This is causing O’Rawe “distress, stress, and serious inconvenience resulting from intimidation and reputational damage,” Mr Winters said.

“We will issue a letter of claim setting out the case and about 14 days later we will issue a writ,” Mr Winters said. The action will be taken in the High Court in Belfast, which deals with monetary awards in excess of £30,000.

The case could open the way for other republicans and loyalists who gave recorded interviews to Boston College for its Belfast Project to sue.

O’Rawe recounted his career in the Provos to Boston College researchers on the basis of strict conditions contained in a ‘donor contract’ with the college.

These conditions stated that “access to the tapes and transcripts shall be restricted until after my death except in those cases where I have provided prior written approval for their use following consultation with Burns Library, Boston College”.

However, the contract didn’t specify that the secrecy of the archive was limited under American law.

“In retrospect, that was my mistake,” Robert O’Neill, of Boston College’s Burns Library, told the Chronicle of Higher Education this year.

The college has argued that Ed Moloney, the journalist who directed the project for it, and Anthony McIntyre, the former IRA prisoner who interviewed republicans for the project, should have pointed out the problem.

However, Mr Moloney has a 2001 email from Mr O’Neill stating: “I am working on the wording of the contract to be signed by the interview(ee), and I’ll run this by Tom (Hachey) and university counsel”. Thomas Hachey was executive director of the Center for Irish Programs at Boston College.

“The college cannot pass the buck. It had overall control of what was going on,” said Mr Winters. “Mr Moloney and Mr McIntyre were employed by Boston College. This is as if one of my staff did something within his employment and I said, ‘this is nothing to do with me – it was up to him to sort out the legalities’. That wouldn’t wash and I could be sued.”

Boston College has a subsidiary, Boston College Ireland, in Dublin, which reports directly to Professor Hachey and handles all its business in the UK and Europe. This is the body being sued in Belfast and enforcement of an award is possible under European law.

Mr Winters argued that the Belfast Courts were appropriate because the contract was signed in Northern Ireland, the interview was given here and O’Rawe allegedly suffered damage here.

Profile

Richard O’Rawe is best known for his two controversial books on the 1981 Maze hunger strike and is a former H Block prisoner himself.

He acted as the spokesman for the protesting republican prisoners in the jail and after his release he worked as a Sinn Fein Press officer.

He was jailed for armed robbery but did not become active in the IRA again after he was released in 1983. Only a small portion of his testimony is in the hands of the PSNI.

Jean McConville: The murder still haunting republicans after 42 years

Jean McConville: The murder still haunting republicans after 42 years
By Liam Clarke
Belfast Telegraph
13 May 2014

The IRA’s ‘D Company’ put about a particularly heartless cover story when its members abducted and murdered Jean McConville – they told her 10 children that she had abandoned them to run off with a British soldier.

It was cruel to tell these orphans that their mother had abandoned them on a whim. But they had a fair idea it was a lie. Most of them had seen her being dragged off by four local republican women.

If the IRA had hoped to conceal her murder and burial behind a screen of rumours, smears and threats they were wrong. The search for the truth about the atrocity led 42 years later to the arrest of Gerry Adams and others.

That search has also sounded the death-knell for Boston College’s Belfast Project, an ambitious scheme to chronicle personal stories of the Troubles, starting with former IRA and UVF members.

Now in disarray, the project was at first welcomed by the Government. Former Secretary of State Owen Paterson even deposited Government documents in [the same library] and talked of establishing something similar locally.

That all changed when the explosive contents started to leak out with the stories of Brendan Hughes and Dolours Price, two troubled IRA veterans who spoke of the murder of Mrs McConville and their roles at the time.

Both found it hard to live with the memory of their IRA past. Though remaining republicans, both suffered from depression and turned to alcohol. In the case of Ms Price, prescription drugs were also involved.

Hughes’ testimony implicating his former friend Mr Adams came out when he died in 2008. Then Ed Moloney, who had helped set up the project, published it in a book and played the tape on a TV documentary.

Ms Price had attempted to tell all in interviews on a number of occasions but had been stopped by relatives. In 2010 an interview finally appeared in which she gave details of driving Mrs McConville to Co Louth, where the helpless widow was killed.

Price claimed Mr Adams was her commander. She also revealed that she had given a separate interview to Boston College.

Once the PSNI heard that there was such insider allegations about the murder in the archive it had to try and retrieve it – and eventually succeeded in doing so through a mutual legal aid treaty with the US.

Boston College tapes: Archive that turned into a can of worms

Boston College tapes: Archive that turned into a can of worms
By Liam Clarke
Belfast Telegraph
13 May 2014

It was supposed to provide an insight into the Troubles for future generations, but the Boston College archive is already beginning to break up with only a tiny fraction in the public domain.

Two of solicitor Kevin Winters’ clients have already received their testimonies back from the college and two more, one republican and one loyalist, expect to have theirs returned in the near future.

Former IRA prisoner Richard O’Rawe’s case against Boston College has alleged negligence and failure of a duty of care on two separate grounds.

There are two ‘limbs’ to the case, Mr Winters and the barrister involved, Eamonn Dornan, argue.

The first is that the ‘donation contract’ offered by the college provided an unqualified commitment that the material would remain confidential until O’Rawe’s death, unless written permission is given for it to be released.

Without this guarantee, O’Rawe would not have given the interviews.

Secondly, the court order obtained by the PSNI only required the release of “any and all interviews containing information about the abduction and death of Mrs Jean McConville”.

Through his lawyers, O’Rawe said that the material should not have been released because it contained no mention of Mrs McConville, nor had he any inside knowledge of her abduction.

“Negligence extends to the lack of due diligence in relation to compliance with the court order,” according to Mr Winters.

Mr Winters has also written to the PSNI asking it to return the portion of O’Rawe’s testimony which it is holding. The police have so far refused, citing “our continued obligation for disclosure” to the investigation.

O’Rawe has written two books which defied republican orthodoxy by arguing that the 1981 hunger strike was artificially prolonged for Sinn Fein’s political advantage.

He has a record of speaking out, but now, like Jean McConville before him, he finds himself accused of informing.

Ex-IRA prisoner to sue Boston College over tape

Ex-IRA prisoner to sue Boston College over tape
Liam Clarke
Irish Independent
13 May 2014

A former IRA prisoner is to sue Boston College after it handed over parts of interviews he recorded to police investigating the murder of Jean McConville.

Richard O’Rawe was one of over 40 paramilitaries who gave testimony on their role in the Troubles to an oral history project for Boston College.

The interviews were given on the basis that their contents would not be revealed until after their death, but after a protracted transatlantic legal battle, the PSNI secured access to a number of interviews.

In the wake of the handover of the tapes, police have arrested a number of republicans in relation to the McConville murder – including Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams. He denies involvement.

The PSNI was supposed to be handed only those recordings where the 1972 abduction and murder of west Belfast mother-of-10 Mrs McConville was discussed. However, solicitor Kevin Winters said the university had handed over a recording of Mr O’Rawe which did not discuss Mrs McConville.

Mr O’Rawe was active in Ballymurphy in 1972. Mrs McCon-ville was abducted from her home in Divis flats, at the other end of the Falls Road, by a separate IRA unit.

Accused of being an informer, she was taken away, interrogated, shot dead and buried in secret.

Mr O’Rawe still lives in west Belfast, where graffiti has appeared in nine separate locations across the city branding those who gave interviews to Boston College “touts”.

This is causing Mr O’Rawe “distress, stress, and serious inconvenience resulting from intimidation and reputational damage”, Mr Winters said.

The action will be taken in the High Court in Belfast.

The case could open the way for other republicans and loyalists who gave interviews to Boston College to sue.

Mr O’Rawe told of his career in the Provos to Boston College researchers on strict conditions contained in a “donor contract” with the college.

It stated that “access to the tapes and transcripts shall be restricted until after my death except in those cases where I have provided prior written approval”. However, the contract didn’t specify that the secrecy of the archive was limited under American law.

The college has argued that Ed Moloney, the journalist who directed the project for them, and Dr Anthony McIntyre, the former IRA prisoner who interviewed republicans, should have pointed out the problem.

However, Mr Moloney has a 2001 email from Robert O’Neill of Boston College’s Burns Library, stating: “I am working on the wording of the contract to be signed by the interview[ee], and I’ll run this by Tom [Hachey] and university counsel”. Thomas Hachey was Executive Director of the Center for Irish Programs at Boston College.

Mr Winters argues that the Belfast Courts are appropriate because the contract was signed in Northern Ireland, the interview was given there and Mr O’Rawe allegedly suffered damage there.

Gerry Adams Arrest ‘A Wake-Up Call’ For Oral Historians

Gerry Adams Arrest ‘A Wake-Up Call’ For Oral Historians
Bruce Gellerman
WBUR
May 12, 2014

BOSTON — The recent arrest of Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams in Northern Ireland has academics reviewing their responsibilities in recording history.

The arrest renewed questions about a supposed confidential audio archive at Boston College, known as the Belfast Project. It contained recorded interviews with people directly involved in the violent, three-decade-long Troubles in Northern Ireland.

The fate of the project and work on oral histories are now being reexamined.

The Treasure Room

On the Boston College campus is the John J. Burns Library. It’s a gothic, stone building where rare books, special collections and religious artifacts are kept.

The most precious are protected in the Treasure Room, stored in state-of-the-art, climate-control conditions under the watchful eye of cameras. And in the Treasure Room is a very special area, accessible to only four people with a secret code and special key. Here are stored the Holy of Holies: an audio archive known as the Belfast Project.

A guard on the first floor welcomes visitors.

“Where is the Belfast Project?” I ask. “Where would I find that?”

“You won’t find it,” the guard says sternly. He gives me the name and phone number of Boston College spokesperson Jack Dunn.

“Well the archive has been closed and no one has had access to it,” Dunn later explained.

The Belfast Project at BC is an oral history collection of ordinary cassette tapes, transcripts and old computer floppy discs — aging media that attempted to preserve a troubling past, but now face an uncertain future.

It was started in 2001, three years after the Good Friday Agreement was signed, ending decades of violence in Northern Ireland between Catholics and Protestants.

Sealed with key and code, the collection contains candid, confessional interviews with 46 former members of the Irish Republican Army and the Ulster Volunteer Force.

The archive came to Boston College because of the Jesuit school’s close ties to Ireland and BC’s promise to protect the anonymity of those interviewed until their deaths. The first to die was former IRA commander Brendan Hughes in 2008. The film “Voices from the Grave” documents his agreement.

“Do you have a problem with committing all this to secret tape to be used only after you have died?” he’s asked.

“I don’t have a problem with that,” Hughes answers. “If I did have a problem with that I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to your microphone. I think a lot of the stuff that I’m saying here I’m saying it because I have a trust in you, and I have never, ever admitted to being a member of the IRA. Never.”

Tearing Open Old Wounds

But what began as an oral history archive designed to promote reconciliation in Northern Ireland in the future is now tearing open old wounds.

For the last four years the agreement to keep the tapes secret unto death has been the subject of intense controversy, academic dispute and international litigation.

A federal court forced Boston College to hand over some of its sensitive archive after British authorities invoked a treaty with the U.S. requiring the exchange of information in violent criminal cases.

Now, after another tape was released implicating Sinn Fein President Adams in an IRA murder he denies, Boston College has had a change of heart and is changing the rules for the oral history project, says Dunn.

“If individuals contact us who desire to have their specific interviews returned then we will accommodate them once we verify their names, but there will never be a disclosure of people who participated in the project,” Dunn said.

But that guarantee is not iron-clad. The troubling archive could potentially be subpoenaed again. Dunn won’t speculate.

“You know that’s something that we’ll just see what happens down the road,” he said.

More than 60 nations have signed the international agreement that was used to force BC to give up some of the oral archive. The case sends a message oral historians have heard ’round the world.

“Researchers will always have to be aware of this precedent,” Dunn said. “So if they’re recording information on criminal or violent activities, you’re gonna have to be aware of this precedent.”

A Wake-Up Call

“This is highly unusual,” said professor Cliff Kuhn, the executive director of the Oral History Association. “It does provide a wake-up call for archives to really consider now when we do interview people to engage in what we call informed consent.”

Since 1948, when Columbia University created the first academic audio archive, informed consent has been the golden rule for the oral historian: Tell participants in advance how their audio will be used, who has access to it, and don’t make promises you can’t keep. The Boston College Belfast Project court orders have become a teachable reminder and have shaken up the scholarly staid profession.

“I never thought it would happen,” said Bruce Stave, professor emeritus and director of the Oral History Office at the University of Connecticut. “I think there’s, if not a chilling effect, I think there’s a cooling of what can be expected in the future. What it’s going to do is to make oral historians much more careful about what they record.“

And participants who are recorded will have to be more careful about the agreements they sign, says Stave.

“It may have an impact on the type of projects that are done,” Stave said.

The BC audio archive brouhaha is just one of many recent controversies over the use and control of oral histories. Some 9/11 New York City firemen withdrew their permission making public their recordings, fearful of retribution by disaster deniers.

And just a few weeks ago the heirs of some World War II Nazi prosecutors raised questions about oral histories collected long ago that archivist now want to digitize and disseminate worldwide.

“What to do about those oral histories that were recorded 30, 40, 50 years ago? Do we have permission to put them on the Web?” asked Jayne Guberman, director of the oral history project on Boston’s Marathon bombing, a collaborative project with Northeastern University and WBUR. “And now that we can put oral histories online many more people can have access to them, and it’s changed oral history in profound ways. I mean I think it adds an ethical dimension that perhaps wasn’t there earlier.”

The future of oral history is being tested. The digital world opens the recorded past to a new generation and with it the responsibility to keep promises made long ago.