By William Mueller
The Boston College Tapes, also known as the Belfast Project, were recordings of former IRA members discussing their involvement in the Troubles. The goal of the Belfast Project was and still is to release the stories of people involved who otherwise wouldn’t have shared their experiences during the Troubles. Many of the interviews contain information that can lead to arrests of former IRA members, which has put a strain on the peace process in Northern Ireland more recently. Anthony McIntyre conducted the majority of the interviews in the early 2000s in accordance with Boston College, where the tapes are kept safely behind a lock-and-key safe.
The Boston College Tapes were meant to remain confidential until the interviewee passed away. Many members of the IRA chose to be interviewed because they wanted the history of the Troubles and their involvement to be known to the public. Giving out information about the IRA to the public can result in death, and this made the members stay quiet throughout their life. Problems arose after the Belfast Project interviews occurred in terms of the validity of confidentiality. The PSNI demanded the US government to have the tapes handed over because they have a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty with each other. This makes it so that the US government will cooperate with the requests of the British government based on potential criminal charges.
There was a lot of controversy about handing over the tapes because many believed that it would disturb the peace process in Northern Ireland and erase the work done from the Good Friday Agreement. The Good Friday Agreement is still relatively new, and there is a concern that more arrests would lead to widespread violence. The bad blood with the Irish and British has been more mild in recent years, but there is still suppressed anger that may outbreak if the tapes were to be released. Also, the release of the tapes would deter other IRA members from speaking about the history and the truths about the Troubles. It is interesting to see how irresponsible Boston College was with the tapes, and how they failed to recognize the legal agreements between the US and UK. Lawyer Peter Corrigan, defending Ivor Bell, said, “Boston College carried out no safeguards in relation to obtaining the interviews.. It’s our case that the Boston College project was a complete sham. Richard O’Rawe feared for his life after he had been interviewed by BC on the account that the tapes would not be released. O’Rawe was deemed “a tout” or an informer for the British, and he feared that Irish nationalists would now come and take his life (60 minutes, O’Dowd). Boston College put the peace process in Northern Ireland in jeopardy, and many former IRA members now feared for their lives.
References:
O’Dowd, Niall. “‘60 Minutes’ Exposes Shameful Boston College IRA Tapes Project.” IrishCentral.com, 11 Sept. 2019, http://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/niallodowd/60-minutes-exposes-shameful-boston-college-ira-tapes-project.
Keefe, Patrick Radden. Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland. Doubleday, 2019, pp. 223-348.
A Reader's Guide to Say Nothing 