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Home Page > Blogs > News blogs > Periscope > Boston College Irish tapes - the truth about Ed Moloney’s book and letting the cat out of the bag

Periscope by Niall O'Dowd

Boston College Irish tapes - the truth about Ed Moloney’s book and letting the cat out of the bag

Posted on Thursday, October 25, 2012 at 08:41 AM

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Ed Moloney

Journalist Ed Moloney has been busy convincing everyone he is the victim in the Boston College tapes fiasco. The reality is different.

Put frankly, if he hadn’t decided to make some money for himself from his book on the tapes, Voices from the Grave, none of the issues that have now arisen around the tapes would have happened. The tapes by now would have quietly become the preserve of academics and historians.

Moloney’s intent was clear from the beginning. He hired anti-Gerry Adams researcher and dissident spokesman Anthony McIntyre and only interviewed IRA figures who hated Adams for various reasons -- hardly the mark of a dispassionate researcher/historian.

I have long maintained that Moloney was out to get Adams when he decided to do the tapes, and persuaded Boston College to underwrite the project and give it academic recognition – something the college now deeply regrets.

Moloney has denied all of this, but in a recent reply to a Unionist writer, Water Ellis, on his own blog site, he seems to admit it.

Here is the exchange in which Ellis congratulates Moloney for getting an extension from the Supreme Court on the tapes issue.

(Moloney erroneously presents this as a great victory. It is not, and merely a procedural issue. I do not believe there is a hope in hell the Supreme Court will hear the case.)

MOLONEY: “Ah Walter! I had thought you dead and gone. Never a losing cause, just keeping my promise to people. If I do have an obsession it is with outing liars, which is why I write about Lance Armstrong! There is another outrageous liar with whom we are both familiar, me perhaps more than you. Wears a beard and used to puff on a pipe a lot. Write about him too.”

ELLIS: “I hope you’re not suggesting that a certain one-time barkeep, for whom power was the ultimate performance-enhancing drug, will one day soon be stripped of his many titles.”

MOLONEY: “A former barkeep with a power complex? Whom could you possibly be talking about?”

It is an interesting exchange, revealing as Belfast Republican writer Danny Morrison says, Moloney’s true mindset on this issue. It has been a “Get Adams” undertaking all the time.

Morrison writes, “Moloney, unthinkingly, in an email to Walter Ellis... reveals the whole purpose of his sham historic project!”

I have to agree with Morrison. Irish America has been taken for a ride by an individual whose main objective is to destroy Adams.

"Outing liars" by his very own words, meaning Adams, was Moloney’s main intent all along. He hid it well under a cloak of academic respectability unwittingly given to him by Boston College.

Now Irish America needs to make clear that it is against the handing over of the tapes to the British government, but also that they are not blinkered by what was actually being attempted here – nothing less than setting up Adams and endangering the peace process. Irish America should not be fooled to believe anything else.

Moloney is a strange character. He recently recounted two utterly fictional conversations he had with me from the 1990s on his blog in which I was allegedly taken to task for using his columns without attribution.

It never happened, I can say with every ounce of conviction I have. But like the Boston tapes saga, Moloney appears to ignore inconvenient truths when it suits him.

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45 comments

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seamus60 | Oct 28, 2012, 03:29 PM EDT

Ferg. It appears you are not allowed to know any of the reasons.

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seamus60 | Oct 28, 2012, 03:19 PM EDT

Seano. Bleeding obvious ? Though i don`t expect you to answer as you never do.

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seamus60 | Oct 28, 2012, 03:13 PM EDT

Sorry folks it appears Niall is being very selective on what he`s allowing me to reply.

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seamus60 | Oct 28, 2012, 03:08 PM EDT

Mairead. They do indeed call themselves republicans, that doesn`t mean they are. They do call people to inform to the British on any individual who decides to take up arms or assist in any way those who are still trying to remove an occupying force from Ireland by this method as per the Proclamation. Assisting an occupier in this manner is hardly the work of republicans unless they are involved in treason. I myself believe that at this time, for differant reasons there is no place for military action by any brave Irish men or woman who are particapating in their entitlement. Even so I will always believe that anyone who endangers them in their fight are enemies of Republicanism. Token jestures such as those recently by SF in regards to political prisoners are an insult to all who have fought and died for the cause.

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Fergananim | Oct 28, 2012, 01:33 AM EDT

Moloney "only interviewed IRA figures who hated Adams for various reasons." Such as ..?

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seanomelb | Oct 27, 2012, 09:39 PM EDT

Seamus you are a little to bitter for me and fail to see the bleeding obvious.

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maireadinmelb | Oct 27, 2012, 05:13 PM EDT

Seamus I agree with you - but they do call themselves republicans and the MSM present them as modern republicans. Anyone else is a "terrorist" or a "dissadend" Considering that some of them and their advisers have been prisoners (includes those interned in teh legistlation who may never have been convicted) they should worry! Whilst it appears that Belfast SF etc are trying to get on with governing the community the other side continue to try to return to old issues and prejudices! Are they progressing who knows? but the definition of a republican is changing in some regards, like mysogeny here in Australia!

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seamus60 | Oct 27, 2012, 11:33 AM EDT

Sammi. The whole exercise by the RUC is to stop many more ex combatants who may have been thinking of telling their story to such projects from doing so. They waited for these statements to be entered into the uni before going after them. Had they gone after them earlier in Belfast it would have been more a local concern with a small audiance. Retrieving the same from the USA however is international news with an international audiance, most likely consisting of many ex combatants from various conflicts, who have now got the message " whistle blowers will be persued". A concern that should be to the forefront for Niall considering his occupation. The belated brit interest to the statements in the project have also been a god send to Adams as he needs something to reignite his credentials as an Irish Republican. Nothing better than something like this to give the impression the brits will follow him to the end of the earth in order to nail him for his past. He`s been here all along with plenty of reasons to nail him, reasons that sent many around him to prison yet he remained free. A man they could do business with.

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glb1962 | Oct 27, 2012, 09:59 AM EDT

Great job, hitting the truth so many seem to be oblivious to in this project. I'm sure Boston College has certainly learned a lesson that all in academia will profit from.

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seamus60 | Oct 27, 2012, 06:59 AM EDT

Mairead. Republicans aren`t arguing for scraps off a british table. There are those who can`t get enough and those who will tell them where to stick them. Why would republicans argue to get exprisoners jobs in a Gov that has cemented partition and help physically enforce it. Calling Irish men and woman as traitors to the island of Ireland,because they remain faithfull to the Proclamation, shaking the Queens hand, allowing the party to vote for and inflict such measures as Gerrymander at expence to Catholics yet again or Internment hardly entitles one to retain the identity as a Republican.

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seamus60 | Oct 27, 2012, 06:42 AM EDT

Seano. Nice one, is the fact that anyone was a soldier in the IRA a sully to their name ? It wasn`t a sully for Adams when he travelled the country in the early days giving the impression he was indeed a senior member. He was shot several times with a Magnum 44 and was walking round Donegal only days later with his arm in a sling. We have since been told the brits had supplied the weapon and had removed most of the powder from the bullets. Do you really think if the brits had wanted him dead he would have lived any longer than Jean Mc Conville ?. A stick to beat him with for his republican activities, what republican activities ? They only beat him now to exagerate his republicanism.

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maireadinmelb | Oct 27, 2012, 03:22 AM EDT

It looks like a repetition of history! Republicans arguing amongest themselves for the scraps from a british table! They did it with "the treaty" and they will do it with the "gfa"! Stop arguing like children and focus on real issues - What about a report on the moves by the Belfast parliament (for want of a better word) who wish to ban all ex prisoners from any government position? or the Illegal continued holding of Marion Price and others?? Let them divide and conquer and they will buy another 100 years of control!

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seanomelb | Oct 27, 2012, 12:25 AM EDT

Seamus60!! he interviewed loyalist terrorist and who knows what crap they told him. I believe Adams was on the army council with McGuinness and Daithi O'Connell why should he give the British and the west Brits in Leinster house an admission which only serves to sully his name and revisit old wounds. You should remember he was shot by pro British assassins thus rendering him a key figure in Sinn Fein. I know you feel that Adams and co have sold the family farm with another "free state" style treaty and their is justification in your argument, but let us not give the enemies of Irish nationalism a stick to beat him with for his republican activities. If he was on the army council good on him.

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dan Breen | Oct 26, 2012, 09:54 PM EDT

Wake up Mr.President ! YOU'RE DREAMING AGAIN ! BOO-HOO, THEY ARE MAKING GERRY OUT TO BE A BAD GUY. I won't have it! Lord O"DOWD ,IF YOU HAVE ANY BALLS WHY DON'T YOU DEBATE HIM IN PUBLC ,( AN NOT BEHIND YOUR COLUMN,) so the IRISH/AMERICANS CAN SEE WHO IS Actually LYING ? Lord O'Dowd wishes he could write as good as Mr.Moloney can. I guess it was Mr.Moloney, who had Marion Price lock up,. Keep Dreaming, one day you will be president,(of what I don"t know) if your wife lets you ! Boo-hoo, No lie can live forever !MLK !

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seamus60 | Oct 26, 2012, 08:32 PM EDT

Seano. He interviewed loyalist combatants as well. The project was by design a conduit for people to tell THEIR storys, in order that the history books would not just consist of the usual one fits all storyline preferred by those holding power at the end of any conflict.Again ,why would he interview Adams or any of his yesmen when they would be compelled to feed more crap into the mix in order to back up their leaders many denials to date. God forbid Adams ever got the truth commission he pretends he wants, when the statements of these few Republicans get so many of your knickers in a twist.Even though you know how many times he has been caught out as a liar you take sides against some one like Brendan Hughs. A brave man who unlike Adams led from the front.

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