One of the first rules you learn in research is what some refer to as the don’t-ask-granny rule. This refers to the sample you use and on which the validity of your conclusions will rest. If you ask your granny what she thinks of her grandchild, chances are you’ll get a different answer than you would from disinterested non-family members. Another early rule is that, as researcher, you should adopt a neutral stance, open to whatever findings your research may present, including findings that are inconvenient or that punch a big hole in what you anticipated.
Which leaves the by-now famous Boston Tapes research looking a bit ragged. For one thing – and I’m open to correction on this – I don’t know of anyone who is a supporter of Sinn Féin’s peace strategy who was interviewed by Anthony McIntyre or Ed Moloney. I do know that some of the most talked-about interviewees, such as Dolours Price and Brendan Hughes, were people vigorously opposed to the Shinners. Which means, if I’m right, that the sample used is hopelessly lop-sided, which means in turn that any conclusions drawn, based on that sample, are about as sensible as eating your shamrock button-hole to show you love your country. The researchers also don’t exactly emerge as neutral parties. Anthony McIntyre has never made any secret of his contempt for the line Sinn Féin have chosen to take with the Good Friday Agreement; Ed Moloney is less forthcoming but it’d probably be fair to say that he’s not the No 1 supporter of Gerry Adams.
The word in the papers this morning is that a 77-year-old man has been arrested in connection with the Jean McConville killing in 1972. In reporting, the newspapers almost always include reference to the Boston Tapes and the claims that Gerry Adams is accused of being involved in her death. As President of Sinn Féin, these claims and their newspaper repetition are not calculated to raise the level of public esteem for that party. The fact that we’re in the run-up to the European and local elections on both sides of the border has nothing to do, of course, with the timing of this latest public focus on the Jean McConville case.
Finally, a short Catechism q and a to see if you have a firm grasp on this matter:
Q: Who killed Jean McConville?
A: Gerry Adams
Q: Why did he kill her?
A: Because she put a coat under the head of a dying soldier.
Q: Has her body ever been recovered?
A: No.
Q: Why does Gerry Adams say he wasn’t in the IRA?
A: Because he likes telling lies.
Q: Some people claim that Jean McConville was an informer. Do you believe that?
A: I most certainly do not.
Q: Why do you say that?
A: The papers hardly ever mention it.
Q:OK, pick up you BT Certificate of Merit on the way out.
Do we know all the Boston tape interviewees? Not to be released until they die…
Good point, Kilsally. That may indeed be the case. So …are you offering odds that there’ll be pro-Sinn Féin voices in there?
Jude :
“On 27 August 2003, her body was accidentally found by members of the public while they were walking on Shelling Hill beach.[7] Jean McConville was then buried beside her husband Arthur in Holy Trinity graveyard, Lisburn, County Antrim”
I suppose we all form our opinions from what we choose to read or see. Most of us get it all second-hand throughout our lives .It’s still difficult now to describe the paranoia of the Troubles to anyone born within this past twenty years .
Most of us whistled past the graveyard and hoped for the best. It’s not hard to imagine the” kill or be killed ” mindset that held sway though. In that lawless time of illegal internments, out of control army and police forces, when legitimate politicians sided with street violence in word or deed.Bad things were done by a lot of people and usually excused by upright citizens across the tribes. They were morally wrong of course , but when did morality ever hold sway in Ireland?
I’ve read the Moloney books so my information is third-hand like most people who weren’t actually in the room..
Chinese Whispers…Did Mrs McConville do no more than console a dying man as anyone with a heart would do? Or was she a tuppeny spy with a secret radio who couldn’t be told to wise-up and was slaughtered by hard men who couldn’t get her to keep shtum?
Would Gerry Adams even want to be too close to the men that took the poor woman away? Could anyone really have that kind of control over his fellow men anyway? Maybe they would kill anyone in their area who crossed them anyway. Nobody in those areas had much respect for the civic laws at the time anyway as they’d already been bent out of shape so it was a bit like the Wild West.
Like I said , it’s hard to believe what people came to accept as “normal” in the Troubles..it grew up around us like nature reclaiming an old building, until we took the abnormal noise of it for granted. Then it ended so suddenly that we were taken unawares and we started judging people as if they’d lived through an ordinary affair where normal practices held sway.
. . The thing i remember most is the silence we had forgotten.There it was …the bees could be heard buzzing. There were no more helicopters clattering day and night in the skies.
How could we have forgotten the bees for thirty years ?
We did though….
Eloquently put, pk. Maith thú…
Ed certainly does not like his motives questioned. I got chased off his site after about 5 minutes one time for daring to rubbish his “research “
Are you not seeing conspiracies where none exist? Barring major upsets, it seems probable that Sinn Fein’s vote in the May elections will be fairly consistent .No doubt Moloney and Mc Intyre can answer adequately for themselves but presumably they are entitled to have sceptical views on Republican orthodoxy .As Kilsally has pointed out we do not know the names of all the interviewees but surely that the choice of who was interviewed was down to Ed and Anthony.When you were compiling your last book, you had to make choices as to who to include or leave out.
Jean McConville is still being used by hypocrites and until Gerry Adams throws himself off the top of Divis flats with a Union Jack wrapped around him, whilst shouting that the IRA were to blame for all the conflict, (including the deaths of women and children killed by plastic/rubber bullets…) there will be no end to this disgusting two faced nonsense. Nora McCabe anyone? Julie Livingstone? Didn`t think so.
Carol Anne Kelly, Brian Stewart ……Anyone, you are right another Jude, didn’t think so
Some character called Mulholland is quoted in todays Irish News as saying that the 77 year old man is his election manager and blames among others “constitutional nationalists” for his plight .In the same report it is stated that the arrest is due to the PSNI perusal of the Boston tapes.That being so would Mr Mulhollands ire not be better directed at the compilers of the Boston tapes ie Maloney and McIntyre.
Of course, the interesting thing here is the number of dogs that aren’t barking at this arrest/charging!Is this gentleman ” persona non grata” within the Republican community?!
When Maloney and McIntyre conducted these interviews did they seriously think the U.S authorities would not seize the taped interviews and hand them over to the PSNI or other British police force at some stage so they could be used as evidence against people. On what basis did they decide that they could decide ‘the tapes will only be released to public once the interviewees are deceased”.? How on earth could you ever avoid the state authorities whether in the U.S or the U.K ceasing these tapes? They seem to think they have a legal basis for keeping the tapes in their possession. You do not. Any moral basis for keeping the tapes is practically a separate issue and not relevant to the fact that the authorities were always going to take them off Maloney/McIntyre/Boston College and use them as evidence for prosecutions. How did you not see that coming ?