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Home Page > News > Arch critic of Gerry Adams and the peace process, Dolours Price, dies

Arch critic of Gerry Adams and the peace process, Dolours Price, dies

Her evidence in Boston College tapes sparked British legal efforts

Published Thursday, January 24, 2013, 7:58 AM

Updated Thursday, January 24, 2013, 4:21 PM

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Dolours Price pictured in her Dublin home.

Photo by Google Images

Dolours Price, 61, the woman at the center of the Boston College IRA tapes controversy has died suddenly.

She was found dead by her son in her County Dublin home. A senior source told the Irish Independent: “She was found unconscious on her bed last night by her son. She has taken overdoses before so that is what is being looked at.”

She was formerly married to actor Stephen Rea, had two children and was in poor mental health for some time.

Price was a leading figure in the IRA dissident support groups and an arch critic of the peace process and Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams.

Her claims that Adams had taken a lead part in the murder of a suspected IRA informer Jean McConville in Belfast in 1972, was at the center of the controversial British request to secure the Boston College IRA tapes.

The tapes were conversations with former IRA and Loyalist leaders for an historical archive but the British government have so far successfully sought their contents.

She took part in the bombing of the Old Bailey in 1973 in London when 200 people were injured.

Price and her sister Marian served long prison sentences for that bombing after they were arrested on a plane leaving for Ireland that same day.

She suffered from post traumatic stress after being force fed in prison and attempted self-harm on a number of occasions.

Price re-emerged as an arch Adams critic after the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 brought the IRA campaign to an end.

Adams denied all her claims but refused to be drawn into debate with her, citing her illness.

56 Comments

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seamus60 | Feb 15, 2013, 12:11 PM EST

Seano. It wasn`t me who admitted to the whole world about sheltering a peadophile. It wasn`t me who denied aiding a peadophile and his standing within a political party that many have laid their lives down for. Surely if the likes of a bishop or Cardinal can have their wisdom questioned Adams can.

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seanomelb | Jan 29, 2013, 05:47 PM EST

Be careful what you wish for Dano. To resettle the diaspora might make Ireland a more republican state.

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DanOLoingsigh | Jan 28, 2013, 07:05 PM EST

ancavker – few believed that the settlement reached in 1922 was more than a short-term fix…the world today is a very different place - a more peaceful landscape, for everyone, in an agreed future for the whole of Ireland is what’s needed.

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DanOLoingsigh | Jan 28, 2013, 01:48 PM EST

ancavker – This brings us back to the events of 1916-22. So many ifs and buts, miscalculations and misjudgements…and few believing that the settlement reached was more than a short-term fix…the world today is a very different place, and hopefully those ‘dreary steeples of Fermanagh and Tyrone’ will look down on a more peaceful landscape for all the community, in an agreed future?

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ancavker | Jan 28, 2013, 09:10 AM EST

Dan: No you cannot bomb people into a united Ireland. ANd yet the Unionists had no problem using violence to drive all of Ireland into a divided Ireland. ANd then for good measure taking one third of the population with them in their new little fascist police state.

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ancavker | Jan 28, 2013, 09:10 AM EST

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DanOLoingsigh | Jan 27, 2013, 07:13 PM EST

Irelandnorth – many Irish have settled on land taken from others…are you suggesting all the Europeans in USA, Canada, Australia etc. should all be resettled back in their ancestral homes? How do you think this mass relocation can be achieved? I’m not sure you’ve really thought this one through?

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DanOLoingsigh | Jan 27, 2013, 07:10 PM EST

Seano – those who seek to justify leaving four, not one, car bombs on public streets in a major city need only to remember that Omagh proves that reckless disregard for human life can have tragic results…ruminate on that before you next cite Dublin and Monaghan, equally reprehensible acts of terrorism.

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anglo-norman | Jan 27, 2013, 06:03 PM EST

Price is an anglo name

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seanomelb | Jan 27, 2013, 05:53 PM EST

Warren! Dumb Anglo is a pathetic creature more to be pitied than laughed at. When the Prices left their car bomb in the centre of london, a warning was given and no loss of life occured. I.m still waitng for the AQ phonecall when thousands died on 9/11. Using false equivalents is the domain of ould Dano. BTW I thought a puffin was some kind of bird with a bird brain. There we go again Seamus guilt by association, you just cannot keep away from Liam Adams.

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seanomelb | Jan 27, 2013, 05:53 PM EST

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puffin | Jan 27, 2013, 04:19 PM EST

Ireland north every person I have met with the surname Price has been of planter stock, to put it bluntly they were prods,why don't you shove this racial purity up your KKK arse

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DanOLoingsigh | Jan 27, 2013, 03:23 PM EST

Jcs – I believe that AQ signalled its intentions to attack the USA…so that makes 9/11 OK then?

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Jcs | Jan 27, 2013, 12:35 PM EST

I believe Dolorous Price did provide ample warning of her and her comrades intentions of their bombing mission.That would be a little more than what those unfortunate men ,women and children received from the bombers that indiscriminately bombed Iraq and Afghanistan, yet they would be received as true patriots too.I guess the moral of my story is ,"he who has not bombed ,cast the first stone".Rest in peace Dolorous Price.

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IrelandNorth | Jan 27, 2013, 12:27 PM EST

Unless we collectively acknowledge the injustice of colonisation/imperialism - the wholesale confiscation of land from natives and it's granting to Anglo-Scot planter/settlers - the transplantation and indentured servitude of it's indigenous polpulation to the colonies and transportation of its incriminated to the penal colonies - the unconstitutional deconstitutionalising of Ireland's lawfully constituted parliament and it's annexation into an imperial union - and its subsequent partition to perpetuate it - we will continue to experience such sociopathy of armed struggle/political violence. Cure the diseasae not the symptoms. Volunteer Price was a product of her environment.

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