This article was last updated on April 16, 2022
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Boston College has shown willingness to return the controversial interview tapes to former paramilitaries who took part in the oral history of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
The U.S. college conducted the research in its Belfast Project that was to be an extensive oral history of the Troubles in Northern Ireland from the period ranging from 1960s up to the Good Friday agreement in 1998.
The project idea was given by Paul Bew, professor of Irish politics at Queen’s University Belfast, and was overseen by Ed Moloney, a prominent Irish journalist and authority on the Irish Republican Army (IRA). However, the interviews were carried out by two researchers.
More than 40 former NI gunmen and bombers gave interviews to the college.
Both republican and loyalist paramilitaries gave personal accounts of the Troubles to researchers working on the so-called ‘Belfast Project’. The accounts were not intended to be released without their permission or until after their deaths.
But Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) gained access to a few recordings after winning a legal battle in United States’ court.
Some of the material from those tapes, have already been used by PSNI to detain and probe Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams last week in connection to 1972 abduction and murder of a widow Jean McConville – the mother of ten children. The Sinn Féin leader had denied of any involvement in the killing of Mrs McConville and any connection with the IRA. Afterwards, Mr Adams was released on the fourth day of arrest on Sunday without any charge and a case file is being sent to prosecutors.
Meanwhile, as the concerns were rising about the status of the remaining interviews, the college has now announced to hand back the tapes to those who were interviewed.
College spokesman Jack Dunn has said: “Obviously we’d have to verify that they were the individuals that took part in the process.”
Mr Dunn told the BBC: “If they wanted those documents returned, we’d be prepared to return those documents.”
The new move has been welcomed by Mr Adams after claiming that the Belfast project was ‘flawed’ since its inception.
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