Third Anniversary of the St. Patrick’s Society of Brooklyn as published March 20, 1852 by the N.Y. Times
Posted by Jim on April 6, 2014
McGuinness defends royal banquet trip
Posted by Jim on
Sinn Fein has confirmed reports that Martin McGuinness is to visit
Windsor Castle to attend a royal banquet with the English queen this
week.
Mr McGuinness will attend a banquet is being held in Windsor Castle in
honour of 26-County President Michael D Higgins, who will arrive in
England tomorrow for a State visit. Yesterday afternoon Sinn Fein
confirmed that McGuinness had accepted an invitation to attend, and he
addressed criticism by other Irish nationalists and republicans today.
He said he was “conscious” that this decision involves “political and
symbolic challenges” for Irish republicans. “However, my presence
alongside Peter Robinson brings an all-island dimension to this historic
event,” he said.
Mr McGuinness previously welcomed the queen to Belfast in 2011 in his
role as the Six-County Deputy First Minister, but did not attend a
banquet in her honour.
There appeared to be no official motivation for his attendance at this
week’s banquet, but his decision to go may be related to electoral
considerations.
With little opposition from its traditional nationalist rivals in the
SDLP and with other republican groups yet to present a meaningful
electoral challenge, Sinn Fein is said to be hoping support from
moderate unionists and pro-Union Catholics will help it to become the
largest party in the Six Counties for the first time.
However, he claimed his attendance marked another step in the peace
process, and that he remained a loyal Irish republican.
“As the record of the Peace Process demonstrates Irish republicans have
always been prepared to take decisions and risks for peace and
reconciliation,” he said.
“I am an Irish republican. A united Ireland has been, and continues to
be, the primary objective of my political life. I want to see an end to
Partition and unity of the Irish people through a genuine process of
reconciliation based on equality and tolerance.
“I want an Ireland in which one can be British or Irish and live in
harmony and mutual respect with their neighbours,” he added.
There was a wave of disquiet among Sinn Fein’s grassroots, particularly
in Derry, although none have voiced their opinions publicly.
Meanwhile, traditional republican organisations saw McGuinness’s
decision to attend the banquet by Elizabeth Windsor — the commander in
chief of the British armed forces — as a confirmation of their view
that Sinn Fein want their ‘snout in the trough’.
Eirigi press officer Stephen Murney said that as McGuinness dined at
Windsor “families across the country have to rely on food banks to
survive”.
He warned that those who “rightly” oppose his attendance would be
accused of being ‘anti-peace’.
“What will be going through his head when he has to stand for ‘God save
the queen’?” he asked. “Amazing that this is the same man who had the
audacity to call Republicans ‘traitors’.”
The revolutionary women’s movement, Cumann na mBan, was set up 100 years
Posted by Jim on
The revolutionary women’s movement, Cumann na mBan, was set up 100 years
ago this week. It maintained the struggle for independence following the
Easter Rising and in 1921 became the first organisation to reject the
treaty which partitioned Ireland. Sally Richardson looks at their stand
for equality and unity.
The Easter Rising lit the touch paper of revolution, but in the
immediate aftermath it was left to women to prevent it from fizzling
out. Of the seventy-seven women arrested after the rising, all but six
(all Citizen Army) were released almost at once. While the men were
forced to pursue their further education at the University of
Revolution, Frongoch internment camp, the women were left to reorganize
and regroup.
If the Volunteers’ dependents’ fund provided a conventionally charitable
outlet for their activities, women also maintained the revolutionary
momentum with vigorous and imaginative propaganda campaigns. These took
several women to the United States, including Hanna Sheehy Skeffington
who got access to president Wilson to present him with a Cumann na mBan
petition.
The Conference of Women Delegates, set up in April 1917 by women
including Kathleen Clarke, Aine Ceannt, Kathleen Lynn and Helena Molony,
demanded adequate representation of women on Sinn Fein’s Executive not
just in the light of the Easter proclamation’s commitment to equality
and the women’s efforts during the Rising but also on account of ‘the
necessity of having their organized cooperation in the further struggle
to free Ireland and the advantage of having their ideas on many social
problems likely to arise in the near future.’
In other words, women’s inclusion was not only their right; their
contribution was of particular value, too. A Convention of Women
Delegates resolution affirming women’s equality within Sinn Fein was
passed at the Sinn Fein convention in 1917.
The General Election of 1918, in which Constance Markievicz was elected,
did not appear to be much of a triumph at the time. One seat in the Dail
seemed a pitiful harvest. Many women had assumed that their hard work
and commitment would automatically lead to nominations for winnable
constituencies. Markievicz’s nomination for the Dublin constituency of
St Patrick’s was followed only by that of Winifred Carney for a largely
unionist Belfast constituency which she had no chance of winning. Hanna
Sheehy Skeffington refused the equally unwinnable constituency of North
Antrim. Kathleen Clarke, then in Holloway Prison with Markievicz, found
her hopes of standing dashed by the machinations of Richard Mulcahy.
Sinn Fein were mindful of the impact that newly-enfranchised women could
have on the election and were prepared to use this in their publicity
(‘You can save Ireland by voting as Mrs Pearse will vote’). The
resulting landslide owed much to women’s efforts, although there was
anger at the lack of resources given to Markievicz’s campaign.
Cumann na mBan’s separate status gave it autonomy and gave the women the
chance of leadership. If it had been absorbed into the Volunteers it is
likely women would still have been confined to their traditional roles
and would have had no voice of their own. If, like the Irish Citizen
Army, the Volunteers had been established with the principle of gender
equality at the outset, perhaps more progress would have been made.
However, Cumann na mBan had grown in confidence; they aspired to be more
than just ‘animated collecting boxes’ and sought to ‘participate in the
public life of their locality and assert their rights as citizens.’
Looking through the records of this amazing period, one cannot help but
be struck by the modernity of these women. For all their studied
antiquarianism and the plundering of Ireland’s distant past for
inspiration, these women were very much of their own time. Many were
highly educated (three out of the six women in the Second Dail were
graduates). They earned their own living (and demanded equal pay); they
were independent minded, bold and confrontational; they were prepared to
defy convention and break rules. It was to warlike heroines such as
Granuaile and Maeve rather than more conventionally ‘feminine’ women
like Emer that they looked for role models.
According to IRA commandant Michael Brennan, the flying columns would
have collapsed without Cumann na mBan. “In despatch carrying, scouting
and intelligence work, all of which are highly dangerous, they did far
more than the soldiers . . . the more dangerous the work the more
willing they were to do it.”
They were anxious to prove their worth and determined to show that they
could share the dangers and responsibilties of war. If women accepted
traditional ‘women’s work’ and did it willingly and without complaint,
it was not because they ‘knew their place’ but because they were
prepared to do anything that needed to be done. If they weren’t given
the chance to fight, then they could still cook, launder, nurse and
carry despatches.
IRA memoirs are dominated by men’s activities, but women get some
positive mention. Tom Barry, while relegating Cumann na mBan to the
“sole purpose of helping the Irish Republican Army”, acknowledged that
they were “indispensible to the Army” and paid tribute to their work. If
women were given the drudgery of the armed struggle, at least they were
not taken for granted. It is worth mentioning that Barry’s wife, Leslie
Price, served in the GPO during Easter week while he was in Mesopotamia
with the British Army.
Women also set up a network and framework of safety and security for the
IRA to operate in. Housewives provided safe houses and went short
themselves to feed the Volunteers. Cork IRA man Connie Neenan’s mother
(a “fighting type”) and aunt were two of many who transported and hid
IRA weapons. Volunteers’ mothers gave much support, often in the absence
of or without the knowledge of their husbands. The ‘separate spheres’
culture that then still largely obtained meant that while fathers
usually involved themselves little in family life, mothers were often
close to their children and shared their subordinate position. Perhaps
this fostered the rebelliousness which they taught their children —
instead of the ‘slave mentality’ that Connolly so despised, these women
were transmitting rebellion down the generations.
Women’s hardline stance, evident before the Easter rising, continued
after it. Cumann na mBan members opposed the Treaty by a huge majority.
Women certainly stood to lose by a compromise settlement; it was clear
that their rights would only be guaranteed by a Republican victory. The
General Election of 1921 saw the election of six women to the Second
Dail. It is perhaps significant that strongly Republican Cork and
Limerick selected and returned women candidates (Mary MacSwiney and Kate
O’Callaghan). Republican strongholds — especially in urban areas — had a
more progressive attitude towards women.
These women all voted against the Treaty. It was remarked on (then and
ever since) that four had lost brothers, husbands and sons in the Easter
Rising and the Tan War; but the assumption that they were little more
than the mouthpieces for dead men was patently unfair. As Kate
O’Callaghan explained, she had been a separatist since girlhood. Mary
MacSwiney and Kathleen Clarke were also committed republicans of many
years’ standing.
The vote against the Treaty was lost in the Dail, but the women scored
an important victory in securing the franchise for all women over
twenty-one. The vote had been granted in 1918 only to women aged thirty
or over. Thus Irish women were fully franchised from 1921 onwards; Thus
Irish women were fully franchised from 1921 onwards; women in Britain
had to wait until 1928 before they got the vote on equal terms with men.
The occupation of the Four Courts by the anti-Treaty IRA — “Easter week
in reverse” as Desmond Greaves called it — echoed Easter week in more
ways than one. Women like Maire Comerford carried despatches under fire
and Linda Kearns risked her life tending the wounded. Though wishing to
share the discomfort and dangers equally with the men, the women were
disconcertingly treated with a rather touching chivalry and shielded as
much as possible from danger. On surrender, Comerford tore off the Red
Cross band placed on her arm by a priest.
Louie Bennett and Rosamond Jacob were among a number of republican women
who joined the campaign set up by feminists to oppose the First World
War that was to become the Women’s International League for Peace and
Freedom (the ‘Peacettes’ as the Daily Express derisively called them).
Irish women, at least, unlike feminist peace campaigners in Britain,
were able to oppose the war and conscription without accusations of
being unpatriotic. As the women at Greenham Common would find out,
objections to men’s right to kill one other without good cause brings
down opprobrium onto feminist heads.
If women tended to fill gaps left by men’s absence, or to do the work
men would not do, Ireland’s fight for freedom gave Irish feminists an
arena to continue to operate in which prevented the feminist movement
from fizzling out once the vote had been won. Often engaged on several
fronts at once, women played a vital role in bringing together the
different strands of the revolutionary movement: the military,
political, feminist and socialist causes were thus integrated.
Much had been achieved. The most progressive republican men had on the
whole been ready to treat women as comrades and to accept them as
equals. The conservatives who took power in the Free State did their
best to exclude women from public life and power. It was a cold climate
for a lot of men as well. But precedents had been set. Women’s voices
had made themselves heard. They still speak to us today.ted.
ADAMS’ ACTIONS COUNTER TO MCGEOUGH CLAIMS” Irish News, April 5, 2014.
Posted by Jim on
Dear Editor, Irish News:
Newton’s skewered Laws of Reality
Here we go again. Newton Emerson, the world’s un-funniest would-be satirist and less than convincing, intellectual pretensions is once again making a feeble attempt to smear Gerry McGeough.
Although Gerry has dismissed the opinions of an “inbred Portadown Planter” as being utterly irrelevant, I nevertheless feel that it’s important to counter his outrageous claims in today’s (April 5th, 2014) Irish News.
In gushing praise of Gerry Adams, Newton suggests that ex-RUC Special Branch man Norman Baxter’s recent allegation that Adams demanded the British Government intervene and have McGeough released following his post-election arrest in 2007 somehow undermines McGeough’s credibility!
If anything, McGeough’s credibility is considerably enhanced by the whole episode. Apart from his sinister RUC background, which involved liaison work with MI5, Baxter’s testimony is questionable by any standards and the man clearly has an axe or two to grind. He provides no evidence to date to support his claims and even Gerry Adams himself disputes the allegations.
The dogs in the street know that had Gerry McGeough been a member of Sinn Féin he would never have been imprisoned or even arrested. Sinn Féin DID intervene to have John Downey released and they left Gerry McGeough to his fate. Had Adams and SF ever been serious about the McGeough case they would have refused to go into government with the DUP in 2007 until McGeough and McAnespie were released and all proceedings dropped in that and future cases. You can be sure that Blair, Ahern, et al, would have moved heaven and earth to acquiesce in order to get the Assembly finally up and running with Paisley and Co all aboard.
There can be no doubt that Adams did contact the British over Gerry McGeough’s arrest on March 8th, 2007. The man was under enormous pressure with egg all over his beard. Sinn Féin had just railroaded the republican electorate in the Six-Counties into supporting the RUC/PSNI, urging them to become informers en masse and even join up.
Gerry McGeough had warned against this policy and now found himself arrested and about to pay a high price for the stance he’d taken. The electorate were disgusted, feeling that they had been sold a pup by Sinn Féin and were telling them so in no uncertain terms following McGeough’s arrest. The treachery of the British made the Sinn Féin leadership look like a bundle of gullible fools. Naturally, Adams, probably very reluctantly, called on the British to release Gerry McGeough.
It is the understanding of the “Justice for Gerry McGeough Campaign” that Adams spoke with the then Secretary of State for the Six-Counties Peter Hain about the matter. Hain’s response, apparently, was that Gerry McGeough would “only have to do two years”! This, incidentally, was days before McGeough was officially charged with anything. Clearly the British had already made their decision. The rubber-stamping show-trial would follow.
For Newton Emerson to try and portray this in any other light and somehow suggest that Gerry Adams and the British conspired to free Gerry McGeough is pathetic beyond words. Obviously, the collective fear of what Gerry McGeough represents and stands for remains very real in the psyche of these people.
Helen McClafferty,
Chairwoman Free Gerry McGeough Campaign USA
Utmost Bias – Any History of the IRA that Excludes Gerry Adams
Posted by Jim on April 2, 2014
John McDonagh (JM) and Sandy Boyer (SB) interview author, journalist and former director of The Belfast Project Ed Moloney (EM) about the Boston College tapes on Radio Free Éireann
WBAI 99.5FM Pacifica Radio
New York City
29 March 2014
(begins time stamp 31:58)
SB: We’re talking to Ed Moloney, the author of Voices From the Grave (and) A Secret History of the IRA. And Ed was the director of what was called The Belfast Project. It was a unique oral history of The Troubles speaking to people from the Provisional IRA and the Ulster Volunteer Force who actually did the fighting.
And now, if you are a regular listener to the show you know, those tapes were handed over the the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and now they’ve been used to charge Ivor Bell, former Chief-of-Staff of the Irish Republican Army, with aiding and abetting the murder of Jean McConville. Ed, thanks for being with us and what can you tell us about that?
EM: Which bit, Sandy? There’s a lot there.
SB: About the use of the tapes for the project you directed to charge Ivor Bell.
EM: First of all there is no evidence that this is Ivor Bell that was interviewed. As I understand it one of the reasons why the police have let it be known that they want to question Anthony McIntyre, the interviewer, is to provide evidence about the identity of someone who’s only known in court as “Z”, “Interviewee Z”.
And they’ve also let it be known that if they do proceed to trial on this they will identify the person “Z” by what they call “the jigsaw method”. I’m not exactly sure what that means.
But there is no confirmation, believe it or not, despite all the media reports that this is actually Ivor Bell that is featured in this interview at the center of this court case. So, you know, that’s point number one. And that should be borne in mind.
There’s a great deal of sloppy journalism and reporting about this case and that has to be up there at the top of the list I think.
SB: Ed what tapes were actually handed over to the Police Service of Northern Ireland? Was it all the tapes from The Belfast Project?
EM: No, no, no, no indeed. And you said in your introduction that the Boston College tapes were handed over – as if all them were handed over. My estimate is that maybe two to three percent of the archive has actually been handed over to the PSNI. A very small fraction – much, much less than the PSNI were actually seeking in the first place and a very, very small number of interviews. I mean, if the police had been trying to get, say, all of a person’s interviews that they gave to the Boston College they were refused that.
They were only allowed interviews which actually made mention of the Jean McConville case or associated elements of it and that dramatically reduced the number of interviews that were actually handed over.
So again, I was watching news reports in Belfast during the week which were saying that the PSNI now have full access to Boston College archives. Nothing could be further from the truth. They’ve got – as I said my estimate is about two to three percent – very small number – eleven in total – and that is very small.
JM: Ed, you were speaking about how it was covered over in Ireland. We’re going to go to two clips now: 0ne from Ulster Television and the other from RTÉ and this is how they covered it. (ED Correction: both reporters are from UTV Northern Ireland).
Audio clip of two news broadcasts by UTV Reporter Sharon O’Neill and UTV Northern Editor Tommie Gorman
JM: And that was two news clips about how it’s being reported over there.
Also Ed, what’s coming out now is how Sinn Féin is going on the attack, particularly of you and Anthony McIntyre, calling the Boston tapes a “touting programme” on one hand and then Gerry Adams issuing statements that if anyone has any information on the killing of Jean McConville to please come forward to the PSNI. So, they want it both ways.
EM: So what’s your question, John? I don’t quite follow you.
JM: How did you perceive the two clips there? Were they accurate? And Gerry Adams’ hypocrisy on telling people to come forward and then criticising the tapes themselves.
EM: well, I mean both of those reports were just so full of inaccuracies that it highlights exactly what I’m talking about here, that in Belfast at the moment we do not have a fully functioning media. First of all, Paul Bew’s involvement in this project, which is now being highlighted by Gerry Adams, was marginal. He was a message boy from Boston College to a number of people in Belfast back in 2000-2001. If anyone had any ideas for projects or things that Boston College could do to commemorate the peace process – to record The Troubles – Paul Bew would pass on their ideas to Boston College and we were one of the ideas that was put forth. So his role is marginal but is being played up by Gerry Adams because he was also at one stage advisor to David Trimble so he’s trying to make this appear to be a Unionist plot of some sort which it is absolutely not.
Secondly, I was never an interviewer. I coordinated the project. The interviews were conducted on the Republican side by Anthony McIntyre and on the Loyalist side by Wilson, Wilson MacArthur. So again, another, another inaccuracy.
And Sharon O’ Neill, the UTV person, who is the one I was referring to who said that The Belfast Project, the archives at Boston College, that the PSNI now have full access to them.
I rang her up and I said: ‘Sharon, that is not true’ and I repeated to her what I just repeated to you, that they got a very tiny percentage of the reports.
And she said: ‘Oh, terribly sorry, Ed, it was because it was a live report.’ In other words when you go on live reports in UTV and you’re the Justice Correspondent you’re apparently allowed to say the first thing that comes into your mind and accuracy is a second option as far as people like that are concerned.
This is part of the problem. You’re getting just absolute rubbish journalism covering this story.
If this was the United States of America and it was happening by this stage, for example, The New York Times and The Washington Post – I would certainly hope and I think they probably would – would have had a team working on the story:
Is it possible to get a conviction?
Would a case like this even go trial on the basis of the evidence that we have?
And the evidence? Let me just go through it:
We have this interview or portion of an interview, small portion of an interview from someone called “Z” who the police are claiming is Ivor Bell.
That was an interview that was not taken under caution such as most police statements have to be in order to be presented into court.
It was not a sworn statement. It was conducted by someone who was an academic researcher and not someone who was a forensic interrogator from the RUC or PSNI. Excuse the Freudian slip.
There’s no supporting evidence. There’s no forensics evidence. There’s no ballistic evidence.
And most crucially of all: there is no admission by anyone, least of all “Z”, least of all whoever “Z” is, if it’s Ivor Bell or not, I don’t know.
There’s not a lawyer that I have talked to in the week or so since Ivor Bell was arraigned on these charges who believes: a) that this could secure a conviction and many of them believe it won’t even go to trial.
Yet none of this is reflected in the media coverage. Not one journalist as far as I can make out has made an issue out of trying to examine what are the real legal possibilities of even going to trial on something like this never mind securing a conviction.
And on the basis of that the PSNI have been allowed to present a fantastic triumph – breaking, cracking the case of Jean McConville’s disappearance – when in fact as I think events will ultimately prove – you couldn’t be further from the truth.
Now in relation to what Gerry Adams is calling for well, you know, we’ve gone through this before. And we’ve gone through all the attacks that he has launched against Boston College and against this particular project.
I’m asking, or I’m saying this very simply:
That if anyone was to conduct a serious history of the Provisional IRA during The Troubles and decided to leave out, because they have fallen out of favor, people like Brendan Hughes and Dolours Price – incidentally, you know, it would help if Tommie Gorman could actually pronounce her name – it’s not Dolers or Dolores – it’s Dolours. It means sadness. He couldn’t even get that basic fact right.
But if we were to try to conduct or try to construct a history of the Provisional IRA during The Troubles and you left those people out – Dolours Price was in charge of the first bombing team that attacked London back in 1973.
Brendan Hughes was at the side of all the Belfast Commanders from the early 70’s onward including Gerry Adams. He was the closest friend of Gerry Adams. He shared a cubicle with Gerry Adams in a hut in Long Kesh during internment. He led the 1981 hunger strikes. He led the debate inside Long Kesh which led to the reorganisation of the IRA in the mid and late 1970’s. He was involved in all the major phases of the republican struggle. And one’s supposed to leave someone like that out because Gerry Adams doesn’t like or didn’t like Brendan Hughes’ attitude towards him and towards the peace process?
I don’t think so.
I think if you were an historian and you left those sort of people out of any attempt to chronicle the real story of the IRA you would be accused by historians of utmost bias.
And we went and we sought people like Brendan Hughes because of their value and the totality of what they could contribute in terms of their knowledge of the IRA and their knowledge of the Provisionals and their history.
And the sections in which he criticises Gerry Adams is actually, when you look at the totality of these interviews, were very small indeed. The rest of it, in relation to the Gerry Adams issue was either neutral or in fact very pro, because he was very close to Gerry Adams and very fond of him and said many, many nice things about him as well as being critical of him.
SB: Ed, getting back to Gerry Adams: I find it very interesting that Ivor Bell is charged with aiding and abetting the murder of Jean McConville.
As far as we know Gerry Adams has not even been questioned about that. But both Brendan Hughes and Dolours Price said he gave the orders for that.
Why is it do you think he doesn’t even get questioned?
EM: Well, actually, I don’t know what’s happening on, on that particular issue, Sandy, because Gerry Adams issued that offer, if you want to call it that, to the PSNI several days ago and the PSNI have been conspicuous in their silence since.
Some people have said this is a very clever move by Gerry Adams because it will force the PSNI to say “no” we don’t want to interrogate or question Gerry Adams.
But on the other hand the PSNI might consider it wiser to leave the option open and not to give him an answer at this stage. So, you know, what all that is about I am not entirely sure.
But from what we know – and incidentally – the only person who has actually linked Gerry Adams to the Jean McConville disappearance in our interviews that I know of is Brendan Hughes. Dolours Price – Everyone seems to forget this.
Dolours Price did not mention the Jean McConville business in her interview with Anthony McIntyre.
Not once did the words “Jean” and “McConville” leave her lips!
She did not talk about her disappearance. She did not talk about the woman. She did not talk about how she was killed or anything like that.
That’s forgotten. It’s just assumed – as was assumed in those reports – none of which are based upon any research. None of those journalists bothered to ring me up, the director of this project, to ask basic, factual questions before they went on air.
I mean it’s astounding! The abysmal standard of journalism that we have in Northern Ireland these days. And that’s a perfect example.
There is only one person who has actually linked Gerry Adams to Jean McConville and that is Brendan Hughes.
Yet, Gerry Adams is coming on and painting with this hugely broad brush about what was said about him and Jean McConville in the Boston archive. in fact it comes down to one person out of all of the ones that have been talked about.
JM: Ed …
EM: Where do you hear that mentioned in the media reports? Not at all. It’s disgraceful!
JM: Ed, you’re talking about the small percentage of the tapes that were handed over. And it seems to be there might be six other people involved.
Do you know what the process that Boston College went through of the editing of these tapes? And who sat down and picked out which parts were going to be handed over?
EM: Well, this is, this is, this is the interesting story, isn’t it?
As you know myself and Anthony McIntyre tried to get included in the case and we were consistently rebuffed. First of all at the district court level, then at the First Circuit level and then we tried to get into the Supreme Court and apparently we quite narrowly failed on that as well.
And we were trying to argue that we had certain rights and what have you – those were not recognised by the courts. So the entire case in relation to dealing with the tapes was left to Boston College.
They claimed at district court level that the librarian at Boston College when asked by the judge to go through the interviews and to hand over to him those interviews which were respondent to the subpoena he claims, can you believe, that he had not read one of them and didn’t know what was in them.
Now you can take that with as large a pinch of salt as you can possibly manage to get between your forefinger and your thumb.
But anyway that’s what he said. So the judge said well in that case I’ll go through them all. Hand over the entire archive to me. So he hand, Boston College handed over the entire archive to the judge, Judge Young, in the district court.
When the case was then lost and Boston College announced that it was not going to appeal and that, the process of resisting the subpoena as far as they were concerned was over there was an outraged reaction from all sorts of people, not least ourselves, leading the criticism of Boston College for abject cowardice.
That forced them into a re-think.
And the re-think was that they then appealed to the First Circuit that only those interviews which actually dealt with and were respondent to the subpoena – i.e. dealt with the Jean McConville case – should be handed over.
So originally something like forty-six or forty-seven interviews were to be handed over (if not more) but as a result of that action, and the judgment of the First Circuit, that was reduced down to eleven out of forty-six.
So as result of that a very, very much smaller number of interviews were put at risk as a result.
But no thanks to Boston College. None of this need have happened. If they had been honest at the outset and told the judge: Yeah – we’ll go away and look at them and we’ll give you over – they could have, they could have handed over even less if they really wanted to.
I know, for example, that one of these interviews – it was handed over on the basis of a question and answer which amounted to: did you know anything about the “unknown cells”. This was the unknown cell that “disappeared” people. Answer: I heard of them but didn’t know anything about them.
And on the basis of that or a question very similar to that an interview was handed over and therefore, in the words of Tommie Gorman and Sharon O’Neill, that is then translated into really crucial, exciting evidence about Jean McConville’s disappearance.
A lot of nonsense being is talked. Very little research, very few questions being asked by the media and the result is what we have.
SB: Ed, thank you very much for setting the record straight. This is an incredibly important case and we’re going to continue to keep on top of it. I think we’ll be back next week with more on this subject. So thank you very much, Ed.
EM: No problem. (ends time stamp 53:20)