Professor Hoyt has written a quite fair and interesting article on the Belfast oral history project, particularly for a non-Irish audience. However, I'm surprised that there is no mention of the fact that Boston College has completely disowned the Belfast oral history project.
"Brendan Hughes, the latter a close friend, ally, and confidante of Adams throughout the Troubles."
In other words, Brendan Hughes fiercely opposed Gerry Adams for a decade or more. That is some oversight on the part of Professor Hoyt.
I might say finally that, whilst few commentators doubt that Gerry Adams was a senior member of the IRA, what happened to Adams during his arrest (where police sought to pin general blame on him for offences as a "manager" of the IRA) gives Adams a clearly explicable reason for not making such an admission of IRA membership. I am not a lawyer or attorney, but I believe that citizens in the United States still have the right not to incriminate themselves.
Is the 5th Amendment not a cornerstone of US law?
Thank your for your kinds words and thoughtful comments. Allow me to respond to them.
First, I agree with you on the shift in Brendan Hughes' political opinions. The sentence does read "...during the Troubles", which I hope you will not think is too semantic. His public split with Adams became apparent after the Good Friday Agreement. The point I was trying to make - and again was writing for a general audience - was that Hughes was extremely close with Adams throughout the conflict, and therefore is likely to have had particular insight into his role or non-role in the McConville execution and disappearance.
Your point on the apparent (because I do not know who all the interviewees were) anti-Adams slant in the BC interview process is a very good one. It may be the result of elements of bias (certainly some Republicans have accused Ed Moloney and Anthongy McIntyre, who did many of the Republican interviews, of a hatred of Adams). It may also be the result of a small sample of people who were willing to talk - those with the biggest grievances may be willing to speak up earlier. I am not connected with any in the BC project, but reading Moloney's book (as I pointed out in the article) and even its revised edition I do not see evidence of a stark bias against Adams.
More importantly, though, I am not sure that irrevocably taints whatever evidence is available in the interviews (at least for the general reader). Even if the interviewers and the interviewees hate Adams, the testimony they offer is important (and deserves careful review) simply because they were there at the time. I doubt the evidence will lead to formal charges - Price and Hughes are both dead, and the way the evidence was acquired is probably very problematic from a legal perspective (I am not a lawyer). Still, it may be an important part of the truth - and that was a major prompt for me to venture into this discussion. How much truth and how soon is an issue that haunts historians, Ireland, and students of conflict termination.
On Boston College's disowning of the project - I originally had a much longer section on that issue in the first draft, but for reasons of length and word count I had to edit it out. In addition, I am not sure I fully understand all the details and ugly elements of the rise and fall of the Oral History Project. Given those constraints, I instead raised the issue briefly and linked to the Chronicle of Higher Education article, which provides a fairly detailed account of the issue.
You are correct thta Lord Paul Bew originally proposed the project (this is noted in the Chronicle article). Moloney took it on as a project, oversaw the researchers, and published portions of the interviews. To the best of my knowledge, Lord Bew played no further role in the project. My intent was to highlight Moloney's role (since he was the face of the project), but in this case I clearly did not adequately express that distinction.
Thanks again for your thoughtful comments. I appreciate feedback, especially from Ireland.
Best regards and thanks once again for enlightening the Cic Saor readership with your response.
(I might say that American academics, of whatever opinion, are far more democratic and responsive to debate than their Irish and British counterparts in my experience).
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