Further to my statement answering allegations from Gerry Adams that the Boston College project was biased against the Sinn Fein president, lead IRA researcher Anthony McIntyre shed some fascinating light on his conduct of the interviews with RTE’s Marian Finucane on her radio show last Saturday.
Finucane asked him this question: “……not all of your interviewees were opposed to the peace process, isn’t that right?”
And he answered:
That’s correct. Not all of them were. Two at least were very strong supporters of Sinn Féin. Others were not hostile to Sinn Féin. I didn’t just interview people who…when this ultimately does come out I think society may be surprised about the nature of the people that I did interview.
I did not interview people because they might be hostile to Gerry Adams.
I interviewed people for their ability to enhance knowledge and to bring more knowledge of Republicanism into the public domain. And this on occasion meant that I had to interview people who might have had no connection with the IRA or the INLA but who may have had valuable knowledge and I thought that knowledge was essential to obtain. And would have no bearing whatsoever on Mr. Adams.
McIntyre’s description of his work not only accords with Judge Young’s assessment that the project was “a bona fide academic exercise of considerable intellectual merit” but it also raises some important points about the nature of oral history when it deals with a subject like the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
History is invariably written by the winners and leaders. If there was a bias in this project it was to get the viewpoint of grassroots activists, not their leaders. By virtue of their position leaders invariably dominate the narrative in the wake of conflict situations, imposing an often self-serving version of the truth on everyone else
But no political leader has the right to demand that they and they alone should have control over what that history says. No political leader has the right to determine who should or should not be allowed to contribute to a project like this.
The primary objective of this project was to ensure that the people who fought the war, as opposed to those who directed it from safe houses, be allowed to tell that story. I suspect that is the real objection such leaders have to the Belfast Project. It is all about control and the fear of losing it.
Just maybe Anthony only got former provisionals who were 'hostile" to Gerry Adams to speak honestly, is simply they were the only ones Anthony could find to tell the truth.
ReplyDeleteI think like that because of this 5 min phone call to radio Ulster from April 2013 by a former blanket man called 'Padric' from west Belfast who was in H5 in 1981 and left the PRM in 2005. The 'phone in' was about PSF and setting up a T&R whatever. It had nothing to do with the Belfast project. He admits within PSF from the leadership down there are very few who are willing to tell the truth, admits PSF lied to Provisional gass roots in the lead up to the GFA and only stayed because he was 'hoping against hope'....I think it's worth 5mins of your time to listen to..
Thanks 'frankie',
ReplyDeleteAs ever, a most informative link to yet another sorry and sordid section of our collective story.
I find this hearth-braking to listen to ... a former combatant and 'H-Block' prisoner, (presumably 'blanket-man')... who gave fifteen long and lonely years of his life in pursuit of what we all believed was a noble and righteous cause ... and then to be betrayed and shafted by a conceited, corrupted and compromised leadership ... Is it any wonder, we feel so betrayed, belittled and embittered?
Jesus, Mary and Joseph pray for us (forgive me, even as an atheist, I sometimes struggle to find non-religious words that adequately express my frustration)!
It's hearth-wrenching to try to understand how men like 'Padraig' must feel.
Is it any wonder, having trusted and vested so much in this facile, failed and treacherous leadership, such men and women found it so difficult ... delayed and deliberated so long before disengaging from these corrupt deceivers and manipulators?
'Padraig' whoever and where-ever you are, I hope you and yours are well and happy ... though regardless of such, still I salute you!
HenryJoy,
ReplyDeleteFor me the time frame is important. Padraig left the PRM in 2005. By then the Belfast project was being 'wound up'. And Padraig up until he left was a loyal member of PSF. He may not have agreed with the direction the movement was going but stayed faithfull. So that tells me he probably didn't approach Anthony to tell his story..
But what he has done is verify Anthony's version in that there wasn't too many within PSF from the leadership down who are prepared to tell the truth...He couldn't think of many when asked..