Say Nothing

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Say Nothing Page 52

by Patrick Radden Keefe


  ‘I am a former prisoner’: ‘Brendan Hughes: O’Rawe Told Me His Concerns’, Irish News, 19 May 2006.

  ‘I’ve made tapes’: Interview with Richard O’Rawe.

  ‘take things from shops’: ‘Former IRA Bomber Price Acquitted of Alcohol Theft’, Irish News, 24 August 2010.

  Price had been struggling: Ibid. On PTSD: Interview with Carrie Twomey.

  In 2001, she was caught: ‘Her Name Is Dolours, the IRA Bomber Who Married a Hollywood Star. Now She Has Become an Alcoholic’, Daily Mirror, 30 March 2001.

  she was thrown out of Maghaberry Prison: ‘Murky Maghaberry’, Republican News, 31 January 2006.

  ‘I don’t want to know’: Interview with Eamonn McCann.

  ‘free-loading’: Gerry Bradley and Brian Feeney, Insider: Gerry Bradley’s Life in the IRA (Dublin: O’Brien Press, 2009), p.16.

  ‘The only thing I know’: Ibid., p.7.

  ‘I’m just telling my story’: ‘Death of “Whitey” Bradley’, Irish Republican News, 28 October 2010.

  Bradley was forced to flee: ‘IRA Chief Suicide Horror’, Daily Mirror, 28 October 2010.

  Ostracised and in poor health: ‘Former IRA Man Gerry “Whitey” Bradley Found Dead in Car’, BBC News, 28 October 2010.

  ‘Is history never to be recorded properly?’: ‘IRA Gunman Turned Author Found Dead’, UTV, 28 October 2010.

  Using the Boston College transcript: Ed Moloney, Voices from the Grave: Two Men’s War in Ireland (New York: PublicAffairs, 2010), p.1.

  The secret of the archive: ‘Brendan Hughes Revelations – Book Tells IRA Secrets’, Irish News, 29 March 2010.

  ‘make it impossible for certain forms’: Faber & Faber catalogue, January–June 2010.

  ‘He wasn’t well’: ‘Adams Linked to IRA Actions’, Irish Republican News, 29 March 2010.

  ‘a malign agenda’: Ibid.

  One night, someone smeared: ‘SF Deny Journalist in Danger’, Sunday World, 11 April 2010. On Collins, see Toby Harnden, Bandit Country: The IRA & South Armagh (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1999), pp.446–47.

  When the college forwarded: ‘A Preliminary Note on Embargoes’, Ed Moloney, background document provided to the author.

  ‘He is not an academic’: Anthony McIntyre, email message to Tom Hachey (undated, late June 2010).

  He was caught off guard: Interview with Wilson McArthur.

  One history professor: The graduate student was Megan Myers, and she ended up citing the archive in her dissertation, Moving Terrorists from the Streets to a Diamond-Shaped Table: The International History of the Northern Ireland Conflict, 1969–1999 (Department of History, Boston College, December 2011). Tom Hachey, email message to Ed Moloney, 4 June 2010.

  ‘I would strongly urge’: Ed Moloney, email message to Tom Hachey, 4 June 2010.

  There should be a strict protocol: Ed Moloney, email message to Tom Hachey, 7 June 2010.

  ‘to the entire scholarly’: Tom Hachey, email message to Anthony McIntyre, 21 June 2010.

  Lynskey was not on the list: Maria Lynskey interview, Marian Finucane Show, RTÉ Radio, 4 April 2015.

  ‘I knew him and he disappeared’: ‘Gerry Adams Interview: No Parade Unless the Residents Support One’, Irish News, 11 February 2010.

  Dolours Price read the interview: Interview with Allison Morris.

  ‘the flattery of the Americans’: Dolours Price, ‘An Open Letter to Gerry Adams’, The Blanket, 31 July 2005.

  ‘This is the only freedom’: Ibid.

  ‘a great rage’: Interview with Eamonn McCann.

  When she read the Adams interview: Interview with Allison Morris.

  The next morning: Ibid.

  Morris was struck: Ibid.

  Price seemed to her: ‘Death of Dolours Price’, Irish News, 25 January 2013.

  Lynskey was ‘a gentleman’: Ibid.

  ‘The man’s a liar’: Interview with Allison Morris.

  ‘My aunt Marian’: Ibid.

  ‘She is not well’: Carrie Twomey, email message to Ed Moloney, 14 October 2011, in which Twomey relays a conversation with Marian Price about her version of events.

  ‘Your sister’s a grown woman’: Interview with Allison Morris.

  Price had ‘vital information’: ‘Dolours Price’s Trauma over IRA Disappeared’, Irish News, 18 February 2010.

  ‘the final days of mother-of-10’: Ibid.

  Before the article ran: Interview with Allison Morris.

  Price lied: Ibid.; interview with Dennis Godfrey.

  Price fingered Adams directly: ‘Gerry Adams and the Disappeared’, Sunday Life, 21 February 2010.

  ‘has made taped confessions’: Ibid.

  Morris must have shared: Interview with Allison Morris; Ciarán Barnes, email message to author.

  ‘a long-standing opponent’: ‘Dolours Price’s Trauma over IRA Disappeared’, Irish News, 18 February 2010.

  ‘There obviously are issues’: ‘I Didn’t Order Jean’s Killing’, Sunday Life, 21 February 2010.

  It was the same criticism: ‘Gerry Adams: “I’m Happy with Who I Am … It’s Very Important to Be a Subversive”’, Guardian, 24 January 2011.

  ‘Brendan said what Brendan said’: Ibid.

  Chapter 26: The Mystery Radio

  In 2006, the police ombudsman: Interview with Nuala O’Loan.

  But she located intelligence files: Police Ombudsman’s Report.

  ‘She is not recorded’: Ibid.

  ‘We knew throughout all the years’: ‘McConville Family Relieved Their Mother’s Name Is Finally Cleared’, Irish News, 8 July 2006.

  ‘The IRA accepts he rejects’: IRA Statement on the Abduction and Killing of Mrs Jean McConville in December 1972 (8 July 2006), available on the CAIN website.

  She refused to specify: Transcript of an interview conducted with Nuala O’Loan for Voices from the Grave.

  If she had been a tout: Interview with Anthony McIntyre.

  There was also a mystery relating: Interview with Trevor Campbell.

  dug through old British files: The researcher was James Kinchin-White. The radio, which was made by a Norwegian company, was a handheld transmitter/receiver called a Stornophone. James Kinchin-White, email message to author. There is a reference in the report of the Bloody Sunday Inquiry to the use of Stornophone radios (‘nicknamed Stornos’) by the army in 1972. See Report of the Bloody Sunday Inquiry, British House of Commons (2010), Vol. IX, Chapter 181.

  They even managed to track down: The image, dated 1972, is in the collection of the Soldiers of Gloucestershire Museum, England.

  Michael also wrote off as ludicrous: Interview with Michael McConville.

  But in a few significant particulars: Police Ombudsman’s Report.

  seven nights earlier, on 29 November: Ibid.

  Helen remembers: Interview with Michael McConville; McKendry, Disappeared, p.17.

  no evidence of a British soldier: Police Ombudsman’s Report.

  But it was tempting: One interesting fragment of circumstantial evidence to consider: in a recollection published in 2011, another former resident of Divis Flats, Mary Kennedy, recalls an uncannily similar incident from her own childhood: ‘There was a Brit injured outside the door of the flat. He wasn’t shot. A kid threw a brick and hit him on the side of the head. Mammy was in bed, not well, and it was Carol went down and got her. Mammy trailed him off the balcony. The Sticks were coming up the balcony to shoot him and she said, “Not in front of my children. You’re not doing it,” and she took him into the hall. She got shouted at. We got up the next morning and there were things written on the walls outside: Touts; Brit Lovers; Touts out. The whole thing affected me in that I hated my mammy going out because I imagined she wasn’t coming back. The only place she was allowed to go on her own was the bathroom. Even when she was going to the shop, it was, “I’m going with you.” You were afraid of going to school and coming home and her not being there.’ This independent account captures the degree of social sanction associated with being perceive
d to have brought comfort to a British soldier, though Mary Kennedy’s mother (also named Mary Kennedy) was not taken away and shot. Bill Rolston, Children of the Revolution: The Lives of Sons and Daughters of Activists in Northern Ireland (Derry, Ireland: Guildhall Press, 2011), pp.139–40.

  Ravenous for more information: Interview with Michael McConville.

  ‘pulled the trigger’: ‘Arrest Adams Now’, Sunday Life, 21 February 2010.

  ‘regarding an alleged violation’: BC Motion to Quash.

  Chapter 27: The Boston Tapes

  ‘Total confidentiality’: 16 May 2011, conference call.

  ‘We are not going to allow our interviewers’: Ibid.

  The very idea seemed ludicrous: ‘N. Ireland Papers on Disarmament Archived at BC’, Boston Globe, 27 March 2011.

  ‘hung out to dry’: 16 May 2011, conference call.

  insurance against any quiet, dead-of-night handover: ‘Secret Archive of Ulster Troubles Faces Subpoena’, New York Times, 13 May 2011.

  He also spoke to the Boston Globe: ‘BC Ordered to Give Up Oral History Tapes on IRA’, Boston Globe, 14 May 2011.

  the more likely Boston College: Interview with Ed Moloney.

  But Hachey scolded: Tom Hachey, email message to Ed Moloney, 15 May 2011.

  but while the police: For a provocative exploration of this theme, see Eamonn McCann, ‘Norman Baxter’s Long Crusade’, Counterpunch, 13 February 2012. Moloney fastened on an incident in which detectives from the PSNI visited Jim McConville in January 2011 at Magilligan prison, where he was being held, and suggested that he fill out a legal complaint indicating that he believed the interviews at Boston College might shed light on the circumstances of his mother’s death. This would empower the police to subpoena the archive, Moloney contended. The PSNI’s suggestion that the McConville family might be able to use the contents of the archive to launch a civil suit against those responsible for their mother’s death amounted, he believed, to a ‘bribe’. Ed Moloney Complaint to the Police Ombudsman of Northern Ireland, 6 October 2015. See Ed Moloney, ‘Boston College Case: PSNI Detectives Offered “Bribe” to McConville Family Member to Enable Invasion of Archive’, The Broken Elbow blog, 30 September 2015.

  For decades, the men of the RUC: ‘Mothers Angry at “Betrayal” of RUC’s Dead’, Guardian, 10 September 1999.

  ‘This is a vendetta’: 16 May 2011, conference call.

  Moloney thought that he detected: Interview with Ed Moloney.

  When he encountered skittish participants: 16 May 2011, conference call; interview with Wilson McArthur.

  ‘You may want to refer this to your legal people’: Ed Moloney, email message to Bob O’Neill, 30 January 2001.

  The following day, O’Neill: Bob O’Neill, email message to Ed Moloney, 31 January 2001.

  But in the end, it appears: Interviews with Ed Moloney and Anthony McIntyre; ‘Secrets from Belfast’, Chronicle of Higher Education, 26 January 2014. O’Neill declined to be interviewed for this book.

  The contract that each participant signed: ‘BC Reflects on Missteps in Northern Ireland Project’, Boston Globe, 18 May 2014.

  that was the last time that Hachey: Interviews with Ed Moloney and Anthony McIntyre.

  Before the end of May: Government’s Opposition to Motion to Quash.

  Hughes transcripts and recordings were unredacted: Interview with Ed Moloney.

  ‘I would bet the mortgage’: Ed Moloney, email message to Tom Hachey, 31 May 2011.

  ‘happily go to jail’: Ibid.

  the least Boston College could do: Interview with Anthony McIntyre.

  Now that the authorities: Ed Moloney, email message to Tom Hachey, 2 June 2011.

  In a line that would: Tom Hachey, email message to Ed Moloney, 2 June 2011.

  The university agreed to fight the Price subpoena: BC Motion to Quash.

  ‘‘omerta’ in the Mafia’: Ibid.

  ‘it is an offence punishable by death’: Moloney Massachusetts affidavit.

  The Belfast Project was not a work of journalism: For a comprehensive discussion of the ethical and legal issues surrounding this case, see Ted Palys and John Lowman, ‘Defending Research Confidentiality “to the Extent the Law Allows”: Lessons from the Boston College Subpoenas’, Journal of Academic Ethics, vol. 10, no. 4 (2012).

  Nobody had assassinated: Government’s Opposition to Motion to Quash.

  The government also suggested: Ibid.

  US officials had clearly been duped: Memorandum of Trustees of Boston College in Reply to Government’s Opposition to Motion to Quash Subpoenas and in Opposition to Government’s Motion to Compel, 15 July 2011 (US District Court of Massachusetts, M.B.D. no. 11-MC-91078).

  But by August, Moloney’s dire prediction: Motion of Trustees of Boston College to Quash New Subpoenas, 17 August 2011 (US District Court of Massachusetts, M.B.D. no. 11-MC-91078).

  Kerry wrote to the secretary of state: John Kerry to Hillary Clinton, 23 January 2012.

  The Massachusetts branch: ‘In Re: Request from the United Kingdom Pursuant to the Treaty Between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the United Kingdom on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters’, Amicus Curiae Brief of American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts in Support of Appellants, 27 February 2012.

  But by the time the subpoenas: Interview with James Cronin.

  When it was originally conceived: ‘Secrets from Belfast’, Chronicle of Higher Education, 26 January 2014.

  When the details: Interviews with current and former members of the Boston College history faculty.

  He was an old friend: Ibid.

  ‘no visible support’: Thomas Hachey, email message to Ed Moloney, 15 May 2011.

  endeavouring to bar access by graduate students: Interview with James Cronin.

  ‘is not and never was’: ‘“Belfast Project” Is Not and Never Was a Boston College History Department Project’, statement by the Department of History, Boston College, 5 May 2014.

  ‘Nobody trusted the integrity’: Interview with James Cronin.

  Moloney and Mackers brought their case: ‘In Re: Request from the United Kingdom Pursuant to the Treaty Between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the United Kingdom on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters in the Matter of Dolours Price’, Opinion, First Circuit Court of Appeals, 31 May 2013.

  But in the spring of 2013: Moloney v. United States Petition Denied, Supreme Court of the United States, Order List: 569 US, 15 April 2013.

  In determining which of the interviews: Jeffrey Swope, email message to Anthony McIntyre, 20 December 2011.

  ‘lead me across the boundary’: Anthony McIntyre, email message to Jeffrey Swope, 20 December 2011.

  Judge Young asked Bob O’Neill: Transcript of a judicial conference held by Judge William Young, 22 December 2011.

  So over several days one Christmas: Ibid. Also: Findings and Order, Judge William Young, United States District Court, District of Massachusetts, 20 January 2012.

  He found that six of the participants: Lawyer’s notes of a hearing before Judge William Young, 22 December 2011.

  ‘Dolours Price did not mention Jean McConville’: ‘Adams Says Bombing Claims False’, Irish Times, 27 September 2012.

  ‘The subject of that unfortunate’: Moloney Belfast affidavit.

  ‘The truth is that the interviews’: Moloney Belfast affidavit.

  Technically, this was true: Interview with Anthony McIntyre.

  But there was another set of recordings in the archive: Interview with Ed Moloney.

  What he proposed: Interview with Ed Moloney.

  It was Bridie’s suffering: Price interview in I, Dolours.

  She talked about getting beaten at Burntollet: Unless otherwise noted, the material in this section is drawn from I, Dolours and from P-EM.

  Like the Mau Mau cloaked in sheets: There were other instances in which this technique is known to have been used to identify IRA suspects in Belfast. In a
2000 interview, the former IRA volunteer Tommy Gorman recounted being arrested in December 1971: ‘In the cellar there were these blankets with eyeholes cut out of them, and we heard voices behind the eyeholes saying, “Yeah, that’s him.”’ ‘Tommy Gorman: Recalling the Maidstone’, Andersonstown News, 9 September 2000.

  Along with Wee Pat McClure: P-EM.

  Price bought McConville fish and chips: ‘Old Bailey Bomber Dolours Price Accused Gerry Adams of Being Behind the Abductions of “The Disappeared”’, Telegraph, 2 May 2014.

  she deliberately missed: Moloney would not tell me whether Price told him that she missed, and he redacted the transcript of this conversation in such a way that it is unclear whether she said so in the context of this interview. But Price also confided in Anthony McIntyre about the circumstances of the shooting, and told him that she deliberately missed.

  ‘These people do come into my mind’: P-EM.

  They were still there three years later: ‘Row over Interviewee Identities’, UTV News, 28 July 2013.

  Moloney pleaded with Bob O’Neill: Interview with Ed Moloney.

  Chapter 28: Death by Misadventure

  At Massereene Barracks on Saturday nights: ‘Antrim Soldier Shooting: Dead Soldiers Just Minutes from Leaving for Afghanistan’, Telegraph, 9 March 2009.

  Dressed in desert camouflage: Ibid.

  Then a third car: ‘Army Attack “Brutal and Cowardly”’, BBC News, 9 March 2009.

  After a sustained initial volley: ‘Chilling Video at Trial Opening’, Irish Echo, 9 November 2011.

  more than sixty rounds in half a minute: ‘Terrorists Murder Ulster Policeman’, Scotsman, 10 March 2009.

  Two other soldiers were wounded: ‘Tributes Paid to Murdered Northern Ireland Soldiers’, Guardian, 9 March 2009.

  Twelve years had passed: ‘Shootings Were Attempt at Mass Murder, Says PSNI’, BBC News, 8 March 2009.

  Even the deliverymen: ‘Real IRA Claims Responsibility for Antrim Barracks Murder’, Telegraph, 8 March 2009.

  ‘This was an act’: ‘Antrim Soldier Shooting: Dead Soldiers Just Minutes from Leaving for Afghanistan’, Telegraph, 9 March 2009.

  Then, eight months: ‘Old Bailey Bomber Held over Murder of Soldiers’, Independent, 18 November 2009.

 

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