bgg616's review against another edition
4.0
This book is based on interviews with two members of paramilitary organizations involved in the Northern Ireland Troubles. The interviews were done by Anthony McIntyre, a former paramilitary who went on the get a doctorate from Queens University, Belfast, The interviews were handed over to Boston College for safekeeping, and none of the material was to be be published until the participants were dead. In 2010, Ed Maloney,the journalist who brought together Boston College and McIntyre, published this book based on interviews with a Catholic Republican paramilitary and a Loyalist Protestant paramilitary. I was already more than halfway through this book when the Boston College interviews hit the news because of the arrest of Gerry Adams for suspected involvement in the murder by the IRA of Jean McConville, a Belfast mother of 10. This murder is described in the book.
The first 60% of the book is based on interviews with Brendan Hughes, a member of the Republican Provisional IRA and close friend for many years of Gerry Adams. Hughes asserts that Gerry Adams was behind the murder of McConville. The other 40% is based on interviews with a Protestant Loyalist paramilitary, member of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), David Ervine. Ervine's story and that of Protestant paramilitaries, is likely less familiar to many people. This section of the book with its complicated description of Loyalist paramilitary groups and politics, was harder for me to follow.
Legal missteps were made by Boston College. They promised those who participated in interviews that they would be safe when they disclosed their roles as paramilitaries in Northern Ireland. However such disclosures could lead to criminal prosecution, or retaliation. These were promises that Boston College couldn't keep because certain kinds of information, particularly that related to possible criminal activity, is not protected. A year after the publication of the book, Boston College (BC) was subpoenaed by the U.S. Department of Justice, acting under a mutual-legal-assistance treaty with Britain, to turn over the interviews. Eventually BC was forced to turn over some of the material.
As a researcher myself, I am in awe of the value of these interviews. The very end of an article published in last week's Chronicle of Higher Education was the saddest:
"The project itself is dead. No more books, no more revelations, no further insights into the minds of former paramilitary fighters. 'It can never be used now,β says Mr. Moloney. βItβs all done for nothing.' β
http://chronicle.com/article/Secrets-from-Belfast/144059/
The first 60% of the book is based on interviews with Brendan Hughes, a member of the Republican Provisional IRA and close friend for many years of Gerry Adams. Hughes asserts that Gerry Adams was behind the murder of McConville. The other 40% is based on interviews with a Protestant Loyalist paramilitary, member of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), David Ervine. Ervine's story and that of Protestant paramilitaries, is likely less familiar to many people. This section of the book with its complicated description of Loyalist paramilitary groups and politics, was harder for me to follow.
Legal missteps were made by Boston College. They promised those who participated in interviews that they would be safe when they disclosed their roles as paramilitaries in Northern Ireland. However such disclosures could lead to criminal prosecution, or retaliation. These were promises that Boston College couldn't keep because certain kinds of information, particularly that related to possible criminal activity, is not protected. A year after the publication of the book, Boston College (BC) was subpoenaed by the U.S. Department of Justice, acting under a mutual-legal-assistance treaty with Britain, to turn over the interviews. Eventually BC was forced to turn over some of the material.
As a researcher myself, I am in awe of the value of these interviews. The very end of an article published in last week's Chronicle of Higher Education was the saddest:
"The project itself is dead. No more books, no more revelations, no further insights into the minds of former paramilitary fighters. 'It can never be used now,β says Mr. Moloney. βItβs all done for nothing.' β
http://chronicle.com/article/Secrets-from-Belfast/144059/
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