Graffiti in Belfast criticizing the Belfast Project. It reads: "In-former Republicans/Boston College Touts/McIntyre" (2014)
The Belfast Project was an oral history project on the Troubles based at Boston College in Massachusetts, U.S. The project began in 2000[1] and the last interviews were concluded in 2006.[2] The interviews were intended to be released after the participants' deaths[1] and serve as a resource for future historians.
Ed Moloney was the project's director.[3] Anthony McIntyre conducted interviews with Irish republicans (including Brendan Hughes, Dolours Price, Ivor Bell, and Richard O'Rawe[4]), while Wilson McArthur interviewed loyalists.[5] The two interviewed more than 40 people.[2][1]
Interviews with Hughes and David Ervine[6] were used (after their deaths) as the basis for Moloney's 2010 book Voices From The Grave: Two Men's War in Ireland, drawing attention to the archive.[7][1][8] Subsequently, interviews dealing with the murder of Jean McConville were subpoenaed by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI).[9] Moloney and McIntyre filed a lawsuit seeking to block this request, arguing that it placed project participants at risk.[9] The ACLU filed a supporting brief.[9] However, the PSNI ultimately won the resulting court battle, with a United States appeals court decision stating, "The choice to investigate criminal activity belongs to the government and is not subject to veto by academic researchers."[9]
In 2014 these interviews were used to charge Ivor Bell with soliciting McConville's murder.[10] Bell was acquitted—the court found the tapes to be unreliable and they were not admitted as evidence.[10] These tapes are also thought to have contributed to Gerry Adams' 2014 arrest, in which no charges were ultimately filed.[1]
The project's interviews with the loyalist Winston Churchill Rea were later subpoenaed by the PSNI and used to prosecute him for murder and other crimes in 2016.[11] Rea's trial was delayed repeatedly due to his failing health and the coronavirus pandemic.[12] He died in 2023, before the trial could be concluded.[12]
^ abcdeGillespie, Gordon. Historical Dictionary of the Northern Ireland Conflict. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 2017.
^ abStackpole, Thomas.How an Oral History Project Got the Head of Sinn Fein Arrested Archived 2023-11-12 at the Wayback Machine. Foreign Policy. May 2, 2014.
^Boston tapes: Q&A on secret Troubles confessions Archived 2023-11-13 at the Wayback Machine. BBC. 7 October 2019.
^Radden Keefe 239
^Keefe, Patrick Radden. Say Nothing. Page 229.
^White, Rober. Out of the Ashes: An Oral History of the Provisional Irish Republican Movement. Irish Academic Press. 2017.
^Bean, K. (2010). Review of Voices From The Grave: Two Men’s War in Ireland, by E. Moloney Archived 2023-11-12 at the Wayback Machine. Democracy and Security, 6(3), 302–305.
^"Boston College condemns threats made against IRA interviewer Anthony McIntyre". IrishCentral. 20 April 2010. Archived from the original on 4 January 2014. Retrieved 28 July 2012.
^ abcdWilliams, Matt (7 July 2012). "Boston College ordered to turn IRA interviews over to UK authorities". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on 26 February 2023. Retrieved 12 November 2023.
^ ab"The Troubles: Former IRA man Ivor Bell cleared of Jean McConville charges". BBC. 17 October 2019. Archived from the original on 17 October 2019. Retrieved 17 October 2019.
^Winston 'Winkie' Rea charged with murders of two Catholic workmen Archived 15 April 2021 at the Wayback Machine, BBC
^ abCampbell, Brett (2023-12-01). "Veteran loyalist Winston 'Winkie' Rea dies day after wife's funeral". BelfastTelegraph.co.uk. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 2023-12-01.
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