Chris Bray on Nom Nom Nom

Tonight The Pensive Quill links to Chris Bray as he describes the actions of the Assistant U.S. Attorney in pressing for even more of the oral history archive at Boston College.

In a remarkable Saturday filing, Assistant U.S. Attorney John McNeil burps, pats his full belly, and orders a few more courses. The Department of Justice is not satisfied with a court ruling that hands them fully a third of the nominally confidential IRA interviews archived at Boston College.

Article continues, click here for full article...

A Response to Ted Folkman

Tonight The Pensive Quill carries a response from Ed Moloney and Anthony McIntyre to an article written by Ted Folkman in his blog Letters Blogatary.

Ted Folkman, a Boston based lawyer, is living proof that because one follows a case it does not follow that they come remotely close to grasping what lies at the heart of it.

He writes that he has been struck by a change in emphasis among those ‘publishing articles critical of subpoenas.’ In essence he means Ed Moloney and Anthony McIntyre given his accompanying reference to ‘their defeat in the District Court.’

There has not been a shift in emphasis but rather an expansion of the discussion to encompass the conditions that helped produce the crisis that has beset the Belfast Project. The fight to prevent the enforcement of the subpoenas, although abandoned by Boston College, is very much a work in progress. Are we in court contesting the enforceability merely for the optics?

Article continues, click here for full article...

Statement After Court Hearing

This afternoon’s judgement in Boston comes as no surprise.  However we will appeal Judge Young’s decision, along with the rest of our case, which will be heard in the US Court of Appeals in March when we expect a much more positive outcome.

We would like to welcome Judge Young’s remark about the Belfast project: “I’ve read thousands of pages of the transcripts. This was a bona fide academic exercise of considerable intellectual merit.”

Article continues, click here for full article...

Renewed Appeal for Gerard Anthony Daly

Tonight the Pensive Quill featured Guest Writer Belinda Daly who renews her appeal for her missing brother Gerry Daly.

Missing Person Bailieborough, Co. Cavan, Ireland.

The family and friends of Gerard Daly (43), known to his friends as “Gerry”, are renewing their appeal for information regarding his disappearance. Gerry, a resident of Bailieborough, Co. Cavan and originally from Tallaght, Co. Dublin has been missing from his home in Bailieborough since Sunday, 26th June, 2011 under undeniably suspicious circumstances.

Article continues, click here for full article...

Boston College Statement

Statement to supporters from Boston College researchers Ed Moloney & Anthony McIntyre.

Contrary to widespread media reports, this Tuesday’s court hearing in Boston will not decide the outcome of our fight to prevent AG Eric Holder from handing over IRA interviews to the PSNI in Belfast.

The important hearing in this case will instead take place some time in March before the US Court of Appeals when our lawyers will argue that Eric Holder failed to take into account the damage these subpoenas will cause to the Irish peace process before issuing them against Boston College.

Article continues, click here for full article...

Iron Lady

Tonight the Pensive Quill features guestr writer self proclaimed Revolutionary Unionist Dr John Coulter who casts a critical eye over the supposed blockbuster on former British Prime Minister Maggie Thatcher.

Hollywood screen legend Meryl Streep will have to made a second blockbuster flick about British PM Maggie Thatcher entitled The Real Iron Lady. While the current film featured numerous scenes with Maggie chatting to her hubby Denis's dead spirit, it is the Irish ghosts which are sadly lacking in this potentially Oscar-winning masterpiece.

Article continues, click here for full article...

Chris Bray On Obvious and Dangerous Lies from Boston College

Tonight The Pensive Quill links to an article by Chris Bray on his excellent blog in which he damns the Boston College figures who wrote a column in yesterday's Irish Times. Bray cuts to the chase and slices through their self exculpating narrative with a swingeing piece of analysis which pulls no punches about the mendacity employed by Boston College as it continues to evade its responsibilities.

Article continues, click here for full article...

Poachers Turn Game Keepers - Policing is Political

Tonight The Pensive Quill features an article by guest writer Sean Matthews on Sinn Fein and policing which looks at the issue from an anarchist perspective.

The transition from opposition to defenders and enforcers of the status-quo by the Provisional Republican Movement has not been without its hiccups along the way which is what you would expect with a path littered with hypocrisy and broken promises. Writing in the Belfast Telegraph Sinn Fein’s National Chairperson Declan Kearney referred to the ’dark side’ of policing and warned his party’s support for the police is ‘not unconditional,’ which is merely a mantra to cover up growing discontent and disillusionment within republican heartlands as they are now the game-keepers lock, stock and barrel.

Article continues, click here for full article...

Chris Bray On Boston College and Jack Dunn

Last Chris Bray wrote a piece about the hapless attempts by Boston College PR man Jack Dunn's unenviable task of trying to get the the college off the hook. As always with Chris his observations are well worth a read. Universities taking responsibility for their actions is not the done thing it seems.

Article continues, click here for full article...

British State Investigating Half The Past

A few days back the The Irish Times carried a powerful letter  written by a Catholic priest who is  the brother of a young man shot dead by loyalist gunmen in North Belfast in 1972. In his letter Joseph McCullough shows how all queries have 'drawn a complete blank from the RUC/PSNI.' He described their response as abysmal.

Article continues, click here for full article...

A Reply to Niall O’Dowd

Tonight The Pensive Quill features a response from Ed Moloney and Anthony McIntyre to Niall O'Dowd. Ed Moloney writes a preamble to that response.

Preamble

Yesterday, Niall O'Dowd published an article on his website accusing Anthony McIntyre and myself of tricking Republican interviewees into participating in the Boston College oral history project with false promises of confidentiality. The article below is our response to this false claim.

Readers should bear in mind two things: firstly, the Provisional leadership dislikes the oral history project because a) one of the participants, Richard O'Rawe went on to publish an inside account  of the 1981 hunger strike which strongly challenged that leadership's version of the protest and raised grave questions about its behavior towards the fasting prisoners, and b) another of the interviewees was Brendan Hughes who was motivated by his anger at Gerry Adams' denial of his own IRA past to tell a no-holds barred account of his and Adams' life in the IRA. In other words the oral history project challenged the official narrative and history - and thereby their sole control - of two key aspects of the Provisional leadership's story: how it dealt with the hunger strike and Gerry Adams' own life story.

Had Richard O'Rawe not decided, against our advice, to tell his story in book form, his interview would have remained sealed until his death and his controversial version of the 1981 hunger strike would have remained hidden from view for many years. But publishing his own story was Richard's right and, as he felt it, his duty. Likewise Brendan Hughes was insistent that his interview be published after his death rather than just made available to scholars. The rest of the archive includes a wide spectrum of republican viewpoints and organisations, from differing generations and geographical locations. Happenstance has meant that the first two projects to result from the archive were these. The idea that the archive was an anti-Adams' project, as claimed by O'Dowd and the Provisional leadership, is therefore a myth. In this context it is worth reflecting on this question: if Gerry Adams had been less inventive about his past would Brendan Hughes have ever contemplated talking as openly as he did?

Article continues, click here for full article...

GARC

Today The Pensive Quill features a piece from Greater Ardoyne Residents Collective, otherwise known as GARC. GARC describes itself  as a non-political residents' group that is there to serve and give a voice to all the people of Ardoyne, Mountainview and the Dales in opposing unwanted, bigoted sectarian parades through our community by the Loyal Orders. GARC states that is committed to peaceful, radical action in order to bring an end to triumphalist parades that are open manisfestations of sectarianism and that result in massive disruption to the lives of people in the  community it serves, the militarisation and criminalisation of that community.


On July 12th 2010, GARC staged a dignified sitdown protest against the evening parade by the Orange Order through Greater Ardoyne, exercising our right to protest under the European Convention of Human Rights. The sectarian march was permitted by the discredited Parades Commission, despite the fact that the North and West Belfast Parades Forum (who represent the Loyal Orders) had refused to even discuss their position with the Commission for a significant period of time. This was despite the stated position that the Commission will look favourably on those who 'engage in dialogue.' In comparison, GARC had engaged with the Parades Commission's then Secretary, Ronnie Pedlow and other Commissioners' in Holy Cross Monastery prior to the march. We gave the Commision our and our community's position, which we represented. 'That there NO acceptable Loyal Order parade through the Greater Ardoyne community'. A fact reinforced by an independent survey, where 90% of respondents stated that this was the case.

Article continues, click here for full article...