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THE BOSTON COLLEGE

ChronicleMARCH 3, 2011

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BY SEAN SMITH

CHRONICLE EDITOR

In Northern Ireland, notes John J. Burns Librarian RobertONeill, there is a saying: A se-cret is something you tell oneperson at a time. But a projectorganized by Boston College and in which ONeill is involved is likely to change the calculusof that adage.

Administered by the Univer-sitys Center for Irish Programsand the Burns Library, the BostonCollege Oral History Archive on

the Troubles in Northern Irelandrecords the reminiscences of those who lived through the regionsthree decades of sectarian conflict.The project has produced its firstpublication, Voices from the Grave,based on the recollections of Ber-nard Hughes and David Ervine,two Belfast men who were on op-posite sides of the Troubles.

Hughes and Ervines verba-tim dialogue illuminates some ofthe signal events of the Troubles,from bombings to riots to po-litical developments, as well as themachinations and inner workingsof the conflicts major players.

The transcribed interviews conducted by BC researchers andhoused in Burns Library wereextrapolated and annotated by EdMoloney, an author and jour-nalist acclaimed for his coverageof Northern Ireland. HistorianPaul Bew, a former Burns VisitingScholar in Irish Studies at BC, wasa consultant for the book.

Center for Irish Programs Ex-ecutive Director and UniversityProfessor Thomas Hachey andONeill both of whom servedas editors for Voices from theGrave say the book and project

represent a unique undertakingin many respects, especially foran academic institution. Whilethe 1998 Good Friday Agree-ment paved the way for peace

in Northern Ireland, say ONeilland Hachey, the traumatic effectsfrom years of social, political as well as physical violence are stillpalpable.

The oral history project of-fers survivors, whatever their rolesor affiliations, an opportunity toclear up mysteries, fill in miss-ing details, and give first-handperspectives of the Troubles, sayHachey and ONeill and inso doing, perhaps come to termswith what they experienced.

This is still a sharply dividedsociety, says Hachey. Until the

story of the Troubles is told, anddiscussed, only then can there be abetter understanding of the emo-tions and motivations of thoseinvolved. And that will enablepeople to move forward.

Published last year in Irelandand the United Kingdom and re-cently issued in the United States,Voices from the Grave draws oninterviews with Hughes, a ma-jor figure in the Irish RepublicanArmy during the 1970s and 80s,and Ervine, a Loyalist paramili-tary who went on to serve in thenew Northern Irish government.They, along with nearly three-dozen other former combatantsinterviewed for the project, wereguaranteed that no interview ma-terial would be used without theirconsent or until after their death.Ervine died in 2007, Hughes in2008.

Hughes talks about the grow-ing resentment in the 1960samong Northern Irish Catholics,who felt increasingly marginalizedeconomically and socially, andvulnerable to attacks by Protes-tants. The failure of the old IRAto protect Catholics, he says, ledto an organizational split that pro-

duced what became known as theProvisional IRA, which Hughesjoined.

The presence of Sinn Fein lead-er Gerry Adams lends a contin-

ual tension to Hughes accounts.Hughes and Adams were closefriends for most of the Troubles,but Hughes became disillusionedby Adams refusal to publicly ac-knowledge his long-assumed as-sociation with the IRA, and by the willingness of Adams and otherIRA members to embrace thepeace process.

In a controversial rebuttal toAdams denial about his IRA ties,Hughes asserts Adams responsi-bility for some of the IRAs moreinfamous acts, notably the deathof Jean McConville, a widow and

mother of 10 who was accused ofbeing a British informant.

I never carried out a majoroperation without the OK or or-der from Gerry, Hughes declares.And for him to sit in his plushoffice in Westminster or Stormontor wherever and deny it, I mean,its like Hitler denying that there was ever a Holocaust...I dontknow where it ends, once you getonto [a] position where you...startdenying that you ever were whatyou were...

Ervines life intersected in-directly, but significantly, with

Hughes: The July 1972 bombingsin Belfast that were mastermindedby Hughes spurred Ervine to jointhe Ulster Volunteer Force, whichMoloney calls the most deadlyLoyalist outfit in Northern Ire-land. Although he does not offerspecifics about his UVF duties,Ervine is believed to have workedin explosives, according to Mo-loney.

Like Hughes one of the IRAinternees who went on hungerstrikes to have their status as polit-ical prisoners reinstated Ervinespent time at the notorious LongKesh Prison. It was at Long Kesh

that Ervine underwent his conver-sion from combatant to peace-making politician, under the tute-lage of UVF leader Gusty Spence,and several years after his release won a local council election asa candidate with the ProgressiveUnionist Party. In 1998, he waselected to a seat in the NorthernIreland Assembly that had beencreated through the Good FridayAgreement.

Despite a myriad of setbacksand difficulties in implementingthe agreement, Ervine remainedupbeat about the prospects for

peace, as he says in the BC inter-view, which took place in 2002:Rather than get upset about itI think we have to recognize thatall of us are in uncharted waters,weve never been here before, no-body has got ever this close to put-ting stability, peace and the sanc-tity of life as high on the agenda aswe have them today. Its not beeneasy but then nobody told us itwas going to be easy.

Gerry Adams represented a fi-nal thread joining Hughes andErvine, albeit after their deaths

and with no small amount ofirony. Once a sworn enemy of

Ervine and his peers, Adams waswelcomed at Ervines funeral, andconsoled his widow. But Hughes,before his death, stipulated that Adams not speak or officiate athis funeral; Adams was permitted,belatedly, to help carry Hughescoffin at the ceremony, creatingwhat family and friends said was afalse impression of rapprochementbetween the two men.

Hachey and ONeill hope thepublication of Voices from theGrave bodes well for the futureof the oral history project, whichthey note started only a few years

after the peace agreement. Theysay Boston Colleges track recordof supporting economic, socialand political progress for bothIreland and Northern Ireland through the professional programsof BCs Irish Institute, the workof Irish Studies Program facultyin Northern Irish as well as Irishinstitutions, the Center for IrishPrograms Dublin facility, and thescholarly resources at Burns Li-brary is widely known andappreciated throughout Ireland.

Hachey, who met periodically

in Belfast with the former IRA/UVF university-trained men who

conducted the interviews withparamilitary veterans from oppos-ing sides, says that Boston Collegeis a trusted broker in the peaceand reconciliation process that isongoing.

ONeill notes that Ervine waspart of a delegation of Unionistsand Protestants that visited BCin 1994, a few months after theIRA had called a ceasefire. I thinkthat, to a man, they were im-pressed that a university with anIrish Catholic background andin a city they felt was at the centerof Irish Republicanism could

be so warm, welcoming and opento them.

It was during the 1994 BC visitthat Ervine expressed his feelingson the need for Protestants andCatholics to forge a new relation-ship.

You have to identify where inyour heart youve got it wrong,he told an audience in RobshamTheater, and where the other guyin his heart has it wrong.

Contact Sean Smith at sean.smith.1@bc.edu

Brendan Hughes describes hisescape from prison:Im sitting in Newry and its coming up to

four oclock when they would discover that I

had escaped so I went to a taxi rank, jumped

into a cab and asked the driver to take me to

Dundalk. All the while Im counting the min-

utes before the alarm bells go off. At that time

there was a 24-hour-a-day roadblock on the Newry to Dundalk

road. And this guy is driving me along and were stopped. The

British Army halts us at the roadblock...and asked me [for ID]...

All I had was a receipt for the leather that was brought into the

jail, you know, for handiwork. And I gave him that and says,

Thats all I have...Im going home, I was working in the wood

factory...And I thought, They know damn well, theyve got me.

But they waved us on and I was waiting, just waiting for one in

the back of the head. I was pretty sure that they were going to

take me out. From that roadblock to the other side of the bor-

der was the longest couple of minutes of my life.

David Ervine on his involvementwith the Ulster Volunteer Force:It wasnt a case that you had a day-to-day

routine or a day-to-day job...anything that

was strange or anything that you stumbled

across, you would have been expected

to let somebody know right away...Once

I crossed the Rubicon my job was to do

something about it; whether I was effective or not, that isfor others to judge, but I certainly wanted to be, and I was

committed to it, there was no going back. There was never

a moment when I said, Have I done the right thing here?

That never happened...My sense would have been that I had

no regrets other than probably not being as effective as they

needed me to be, or felt they needed me to be...It was a ham-

ster wheel to hell, and, you could argue, well out of control.

Once youre on that hamster wheel, not only does there seem

even with hindsight no way off, [but] I didnt want to get off.

Center for Irish Programs Executive Director Thomas Hachey, right, andBurns Librarian Robert ONeill. (Photo by Lee Pellegrini)

This is still a sharply divided society. Until the story of the Troubles is told, and discussed,only then can there be a better understanding of the emotions and motivations of those involved.And that will enable people to move forward. Thomas Hachey

Hearing VoicesFirst book produced through BCs oral history project in Northern Irelandprovides two controversial, behind-the-scenes views of the Troubles