ACLU Intervenes In Boston College Subpoenas Case

Tonight The Pensive Quill carries a press release on the ACLU intervention in the Boston College subpoena case.

Boston College Subpoenas Would “Transform Interviewers and Interviewees Into Informers” and Liable to Execution by IRA – ACLU Amicus Brief

The two people at the center of the controversial Boston College Tapes case, former Belfast Project Director and journalist, Ed Moloney and IRA interviewer and academic, Anthony McIntyre, today welcomed the intervention of the Massachusetts affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union (“ACLUM”) in support of their appeal before the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, which is due to hear their appeal in early April.

In its extensive and hard-hitting amicus brief, ACLUM confirmed that the interviewers for the oral history project on the Troubles in Northern Ireland run by Boston College could face an IRA death penalty if the US government’s bid to force the handover of interview materials was to succeed. The ACLUM’s amicus brief was prepared independently without input from the Appellants or their attorneys.

Government Documents Show Just How Exact Brendan Duddy's Notes Were.

Tonight The Pensive Quill features guest writer, Thomas Dixie Elliot, commenting on the hunger strike debate. The following was published as a letter in the Irish News on 6 January 2012.

I am a former Blanket man and during the period before and after July 1981 I was on the wing with Richard O’Rawe and Bik McFarlane. The Hunger Strikes are still a memory that haunts me to this very day. I saw brave men walk from our wing never to see them again.

I knew one thing from being on that wing and that was that Bik relied heavily upon Richard for advice concerning the Hunger Strike. I’ve followed the claims regarding the offer on July 5th for a long time and never once saw Richard waver in his claim that the Brits delivered an offer on July 5th 1981, which he and Bik agreed contained enough to end the Hunger Strike but that upon sending word outside the offer was rejected by the Adams committee who were dealing with it.

Chris Bray: Called to Account

A librarian and a professor claimed half of the royalties from a book based on a research project they had nominally overseen, saying they would use the cash for the support of further research at their university. Then they took the money for themselves, and they didn't tell the university they'd done it. Years later, lost in the dark, the university made an outrageous attack on an outside researcher it had hired for the same project: the university's spokesman publicly denigrated the researcher for making money on the book that resulted from the project, without mentioning that the professor and the librarian had done the same. He made that false claim because he didn't know it was false, since the professor and the librarian had never mentioned that they profited from the book (and because the exceptionally reckless spokesman was making a serious personal attack based only on his uninformed assumptions).

This & That: Take 7

Putting the Kids to Sleep

At first I was only half paying attention to this but as it went on I grew horrified until I realised I was merely allowing myself to be taken in. Sensing that that my wife was listening to my protestations of ‘murder’ I assumed the sheepish grin to mask a feeling of foolishness!

In two years time this very week my own daughter will 13. What life changing decision will I be confronted with when she succumbs to textomania and rolling eye syndrome?

Chris Bray: Boston College Burns the Seed Corn

The continuing discussion about Boston College and the federal subpoenas of its Belfast Project material is a discussion about the very thing itself, about the place and nature of academic inquiry. What is a research university? What does it do? What is its purpose, its structure, its premise, its principle?

Here, again, is a paragraph from a Feb. 15 story in The Heights, the student-run newspaper at Boston College:

    On the other hand, Dunn stated that the University made no such promises, and in fact informed Moloney and McIntyre of the risk of subpoena and the danger such a situation could pose to the archives. He admitted that the language "to the extent that American law provides" was not found exactly in the donor agreement, but stated his belief that the contract was drawn up by Moloney, not BC.

Ed Moloney -- a journalist, not on faculty, hired as a contractor to run a research project under BC's aegis -- supposedly wrote the contracts between BC and its research subjects.

Marian Price Targeted by Special Repression

Tonight The Pensive Quill carries a follow up piece to Alec McCrory's article Marian Price Needs You. It is written by Martin Galvin who has long campaiged on justice issues in Ireland.

Alec McCrory's article is an important piece which raises important questions.

Why did the Brendan Lillis campaign succeed?  Can the lessons of that campaign show us the way to win freedom for Marian, as well as for other Republicans who are now or surely will be targeted for special repression if the British succeed with these test cases?

My own analysis is that the British have their own version of a “change agenda”. The dark side of the British “change agenda” was to draw some Republicans into places within a British Stormont administration, then “change them” by displaying them in such positions as visible props whose names and reputations satisfy many nationalists and Republicans that repression is being taken care of through constabulary board and partnership meetings or by control over an appointed justice minister.

Chris Bray: A Most Unwelcome Development

Boston College filed its notice of appeal yesterday in the court case over the Belfast Project subpoenas, but the substance, tone, and seriousness of that appeal remains unclear. A detailed appellate brief, explaining their argument in full, is probably a few weeks away. But for now, we have this statement from BC spokesman Jack Dunn, made today in a brief interview with the local NPR affiliate:

“It appears that these interviews have limited probative value to the criminal investigation,” Dunn said. “We are engaged in this issue for the sake of academic research and the enterprise of oral history.”

That statement eats itself: BC is fighting to protect academic research, but explicitly signals that its only intention is to protect interviews that don't matter. Interviews with probative value to a criminal investigation? Yeah, go for it, doors to the archive are wide open. Happy to help!

Marian Price Needs You

Tonight The Pensive Quill features a piece from the former republican prisoner Alec McCrory protesting the ongoing imprisonment of Marian Price.

It is encouraging to note the growing interest in Marian Price even if it has been slow to materialise. She was recently transferred to Hydebank prison hospital due to concerns over her health. Eight months of solitary incarceration has led to deterioration in her mental and physical condition, so much so, that her family and friends were becoming increasingly worried for her well-being. It is a question of conjecture whether this move will benefit her or not.

Chris Bray: A Most Welcome Development

Boston College has just filed a notice of appeal with the district court in Boston, challenging some piece of the court's orders regarding the Belfast Project subpoenas. I can't find the appellate filing on Pacer, yet, and BC's public affairs office mostly doesn't respond to my questions, these days, so I don't know what they're appealing or on what grounds. More soon!

ADDED LATER:

Below, the very brief notice of appeal filed with the district court. It shows that BC is appealing the judge's order regarding materials responsive to the second set of subpoenas, the broad Aug. 4 subpoenas that sought any materials related to the murder of Jean McConville.

66 Days

Over the years, Israel has held thousands of Palestinians in administrative detention, for periods ranging from several months to several years -  Israeli human rights group B'Tselem.

Khader Adnan, the 33 year old Palestinian hunger striker, went without food for as long as the Irish republican hunger striker Bobby Sands. Unlike Sands, Adnan, a spokesperson for Islamic Jihad, survived the ordeal and we are to be grateful for that. He came through not because he abandoned his fast but because the Israeli authorities moved some distance towards meeting his demands and have agreed to release him from custody in mid-April. If this is so the father of two young daughters will be able to return to both them and his pregnant wife. He had been protesting against his detention without charge, a process termed by the Israelis as ‘administrative detention’ and which was called internment when the British employed it in Ireland.

Adnan’s plight was not unnoticed in Ireland where the history of hunger striking against injustice touches a raw nerve. Former hunger striker Tommy McKearney voiced his support for Adnan while the families of some of those who died in the H-Blocks in 1981 also gave the prisoner their backing. These acts of solidarity, coupled with the length of time endured on hunger strike being exactly the same as Sands, have helped forge a shared identity and unity of purpose in the public mind.

Chris Bray: Plain Truths

At the Chronicle of Higher Education: a great interview with Rik Scarce, a sociologist who was jailed for refusing to tell a federal grand jury about his confidential discussions with research subjects. The interview centers on the federal subpoenas of IRA interviews at Boston College, and the schism between the university and its researchers. Sample exchange:

Q. What is the principled stance here?

A. The researchers' stance.

Read the whole thing!

Chris Bray: In the Second Act, the Protagonist Withdraws to the Wings

The ACLU of Massachusetts (ACLUM) will file an amicus brief in a legal appeal over the federal subpoenas of confidential archival material held by Boston College. On Friday, needing time to prepare that amicus brief, the ACLUM asked a First Circuit judge to extend the filing deadlines in two related appeals -- consolidated for the court's simultaneous consideration -- filed by Belfast Project researchers Ed Moloney and Anthony McIntyre. The brief is below.

Boston College continues to do nothing much.

Village Mentality

Not long ago we read of a vicious sectarian attack in the Village area of South Belfast. A teenager was set upon by a hate filled mob, beaten and left for dead. One of the attackers was reported as having said ‘that’s enough I think he he’s dead.’ Maybe we should read into that some form of moral restraint: an appeal to those in the mob who felt that death wasn’t enough and that maybe the body was in need of some form of desecration. Perhaps they were of a mind to take it to a local club where it could be placed on display like a trophy for the drooling drunks to slaver over.  Margaret Wright was beaten and shot to death in a band hall not too far away so that Ulster would not surrender. 

The Death of Brian Mór

It is with deep regret that The Pensive Quill informs its readers of the death of our great cartoonist Brian Mór. Brian was an indefatigable artist of prolific output. His work touched many and scorched more. He had been ill for some time but never failed to keep in touch with us. Always there, offering moral support, while expressing regret that his eyesight would not permit him to add to his prodigious volume of work. A bane of the Section 31 mentality that so often managed to co-opt those it once censored, Brian was a tireless advocate of those who would not be silenced.

He will be remembered long after the censors have been forgotten.

Message from the Edge of the Union

Never Mix Buses with Irish Politics 

This was put together and submitted to The Pensive Quill by Marty Cullen. It is a humourous response to unflattering remarks thrown the way of Ruth Dudley Edwards in the comments section of the blog. Ruth, unfazed, suggested the Quill carry this. Good for her.

Gerry McGeough: One Year On

Tonight The Pensive Quill carries a statement from Gerry McGeough on his one year incarceration today in Maghaberry prison 18 February 2012


A year ago today an English Diplock Judge had me thrown in jail as a defacto political hostage.  My imprisonment and continued incarceration make a mockery of the Good Friday Agreement and proves that political repression and the sectarian discrimination remains central to the existence of this statelet.

Chris Bray: Adrift

"Though participants signed contracts that promised them privacy 'to the extent that American law allows,' project supervisors Ed Moloney, an Irish journalist, and Anthony McIntyre, a former IRA member, have been harshly critical of the University's stance in international media."

-- "Admins Alert Students of Belfast Project," The Heights, Feb. 5, 2012

Bilious Baxter

Below is a link to a very thought provoking article in Counterpunch by Eamon McCann. It raises serious questions about the nature of policing in the North and in particular the role of the rabid former RUC operative, Norman Baxter. Well worth a read as it provides insight into the motivations determining the PSNI gusto for selectively addressing the past.

From Insurrection To Parliament

Northern Ireland’s ‘Orange State’, a durable term inserted into the political lexicon by the author Michael Farrell, is a core theme of this recent book on the Provisional IRA. Written by one of the guerrilla group’s most astute former members, Tommy McKearney, the work seeks both to explain the origins of the Provisional IRA’s campaign and assess its impact. This is no kid glove appraisal of the subject matter but a bare knuckle analysis conducted with the mind and eye of one who both participated and observed.   

While more than a few veterans of the armed struggle view the IRA campaign as an unmitigated failure in that it achieved nothing of the traditionally stated republican goals, McKearney however is a calibrated evaluator. The collapse of the Orange State, which with analytical significance he dates much later than the 1972 collapse of unionist political rule, he considers a significant strategic achievement of the IRA campaign. It also allows him to explain its longevity, which has baffled other observers given that the IRA ended its war in exchange for terms it had previously rejected in 1974.

Chris Bray: Dunn with the Lies

"From the very beginning of this project, which was conceived by Ed Moloney -- he approached Boston College with the idea to record conversations with former paramilitaries from the IRA and the UVF, and he asked if we would be interested in being a repository of these materials. Boston College is America's leading institution on Irish studies, Irish history, Irish literature. We agreed to add it to our extensive holdings as one more example of something that could be used as a resource for future historians, for journalists, etc., regarding the Troubles."

-- Jack Dunn, RTE Interview, Jan. 25 2012 (since pulled), describing BC's passive, recipient-only role in Ed Moloney's Belfast Project.

Reply To Sinn Fein From Gerry McGeough Campaign

Tonight The Pensive Quill features a reply to Sinn Fein from the Gerry McGeough Campaign. That reply is followed by the Sinn Fein position as articulated by Gerry Adams and Gerry Kelly

A chairde

Recently several prominent supporters of the campaign to free Gerry McGeough forwarded emails sent from Sinn Fein for our comments. These emails say that Sinn Fein has called for Gerry McGeough’s release from Maghaberry and therefore our justice campaign should “focus our efforts on the British government, which is responsible for his imprisonment, and on the Irish government, which is a co-signatory to the Weston Park agreement.”

Gerry McGeough has been imprisoned by the British for more than a year at Maghaberry. Clearly  the combined weight of court challenges, calls from political parties including Sinn Fein , together with  pressure through any and all other political mechanisms, have not yet been sufficient to compel the British to free him. Like any other justice campaign, we can only try for greater efforts by any and every source open to us, until the British give Gerry McGeough the freedom to which we all agree he is entitled.

The primary focus of efforts to pressure the British crown has been legal challenges in British courts, thus far including an abuse of process application, a Diplock trial defense, appeals, and judicial review. Even now a ruling on his pending judicial review is imminent, and could mean freedom for Gerry McGeough.

Chris Bray: One of These Days, Alice

So there I am, having a calm, polite, productive discussion with the editors of The Heights. And suddenly, a crazy person storms into the room and starts shitting all over himself:

Taylour and David: Greetings from El Salvador. Please know that Chris Bray is a professional grad student who has no credibility in academe. He is a lap dog for Mr. Moloney who blogs incessantly without regard for the truth. No one takes him seriously. You should not feel compelled to do so either. Chris, David has seen the contract that Mr. Moloney signed and has read the court proceedings and affidavits. He is an excellent reporter who is tough but fair. He is also unflappable. Your pathetic attempt to bully a student reporter will not work here. The Heights is the best student newspaper in the country. They will not be affected by your attacks. I really feel sorry for you. I hope you will grow up one day. I also hope that we meet sometime, where you will not be able to hide behind your key board.

Jack

Darwin Day

This Darwin Day will be celebrated by the GLOBAL community as a toast to the common good of all humanity. We will all want to develop events to Celebrate Darwin, Science and Humanity and come together as one human family in appreciation of verifiable knowledge that has been acquired solely through human curiosity and ingenuity – The International Darwin Day Foundation

Today is the birthday of Charles Darwin. One writer suggested that it should be a holiday for the reality based community and suggested ways in which it could be celebrated. I can’t imagine heading off to the pub and ordering a Double Darwin. It’s not as if it is Father’s Day or some similar occasion.

While I didn’t attend anything there are universities, colleges, science institutes and other sites of knowledge that hold events in honour of the man who did so much to advance science and dispel myth.

Chris Bray: Proof by Denial

Boston College did not clearly warn Belfast Project interviewees that it would not protect their interviews against a subpoena. Period. The explicit promise between BC and interviewees was simply that their interviews would be kept confidential until they died or chose to affirmatively waive confidentiality. The proof comes from campus, in the form of a statement claiming the opposite.

Along with this post about this story, I wrote to the editors of The Heights, the student-run newspaper at Boston College. I asked them about this claim in their story:

Though participants signed contracts that promised them privacy "to the extent that American law allows," project supervisors Ed Moloney, an Irish journalist, and Anthony McIntyre, a former IRA member, have been harshly critical of the University's stance in international media.

Praying for Paisley

Ian Paisley is said to be seriously ill. He may be approaching the end of his life, his only life. His 85 years in this innings have not been some practice run for the next one. This is it. As they used to say at the close of the movie in the cinema – THE END. That’s the thing about life, as those clued in get it:  nobody yet has survived the experience. It never ends in anything other than destruction.

I don’t harbour the desire for some sort of painful end for those with whom I have clashed. It strikes me as tasteless. The morbid delight some derive at others hurtling towards the finishing line has no traction in my mind.  It is a sentiment I have never had reason to warm to and every reason to find repellent.  If they go, they go. I don’t want to be hovering there like a buzzard waiting to feast. While remaining conscious of Salman Rushdie’s admonition against sentimentality that when tyrants fall only hypocrites grieve, dancing on the grave is not for me. The Let’s Party when Thatcher dies mentality, with its ‘ding dong the bitch is dead’, sing-along, ranks with the perverse.  If it is infectious it has thus far spared me.  Fionola Meredith’s take in The Belfast Telegraph is not devoid of reason when she waves away the cheerleaders for the dying.

Chris Bray: Imagine a Rope, and Perceive It Around Your Wrists

From the same news story that I discussed yesterday:

    "While Boston College clearly informed the project director that confidentiality could be guaranteed only to the extent that American law allows, [Moloney] and one of his interviewers have chosen to attack the University in the media for complying with the government subpoenas," the letter to students abroad read.

Language is a remarkable tool, and allows dishonest users to evade meaning as they appear to create it. The choice presented to Boston College was not simply complying with the subpoenas or not complying with the subpoenas.

This & That: Take 6

Luck of the Draw

 Hard to believe that Liverpool got good results against each of the Manchester teams, knocking both out of the major English domestic cup competitions. Had the results gone Manchester’s way, there may have been a serious loss of confidence in Kenny Dalglish’s ability to resurrect his team’s fortunes. For now the Benitez/Hodgson road has been spared him but for how long? Beating Wolves 3-0 is ok only because Liverpool must have been expecting a draw. Which is just what they got at Anfield on Monday night when Harry Rednapp’s Spurs taxed them, resulting in a scoreless game.

Liverpool travel to Manchester United this weekend. As much as the focus should be on the feet more attention might be on the hands – whether there is a shake between Patrice Evra and Luiz Suarez. Liverpool’s Uruguayan international is just back from an extended suspension which he received for racially abusing Evra. Rather than court controversy Liverpool might play Suarez as a sub. That way the pre-match ritual shaking of hands between both teams will be avoided. United will hardly spare their blushes by placing Evra on the subs’ bench. Why should they? It would be like telling him to go to the back of the bus.  

Chris Bray: The Heights of Credulity

The foundation of a successful career in mainstream journalism is the ability to assess a puddle of baffling horseshit and type it up as fact. A key to this performance is the choice of verbs: officials "explain" and "reveal," critics and dissidents "claim" and "allege." So there's some good news for Boston College: your student journalists are learning well, and will be eligible for post-collegiate employment in their field.

A Sunday story on the website of The Heights, the BC student newspaper, reports that the university has sent a warning to its students "studying abroad in Ireland and England," particularly in "sensitive areas such as Belfast." Not sure if they're putting Belfast in Ireland or England, there, but if they mean to place it in Ireland, let's take it as a political statement and suggest that Sinn Fein send them a thank you note. Our president thinks Tehran hosts an "English Embassy," so let's be kind on this point.

Commemorating Liam Mellows

Tonight The Pensive Quill features a graveside oration given by Sean Doyle at a commemoration for Liam Mellows on Saturday 10th December 2011 at Castletown Cemetery County Wexford.  Sean Doyle belongs to the Wicklow branch Independent Workers Union and Clann Eirigi.  He frequently guest writes for this blog.

We have assembled here today to commemorate the life of Liam Mellows. Through the generations revolutionaries have come to the fore to take up the mantle to guide, inspire and lead us in our quest for liberation.      

Liam Mellows contribution and sacrifices places him amongst our Socialist Republican visionaries. He was born in Manchester to William Joseph Mellows on the 25th of May 1895 who was a British army non commissioned officer, and Sarah Jordan of Inch, County Wexford where he grew up. His family moved to Fairview in Dublin in February 1895 when his father was transferred. However Liam remained in Wexford with his grandfather due to ill health. He was educated in Cork and Portobello garrison school in Dublin but ultimately refused a military career much to his father’s dismay choosing to work as a clerk in several Dublin firms.

Nationalist-inclined Mellows approached Thomas Clarke who recruited him to Fianna Eireann, an organisation of young Republicans. Mellows was introduced to James Connolly at Countess Markeviczs  residence recuperating after his hunger strike. Connolly was deeply impressed and told his daughter Nora “I have found a real man”. He was possibly about 19 years old and Connolly was 47 but they were equally committed on views to achieve an Irish Republic. Mellows was active in the I.R.B. and a founder member of the Irish Volunteers being brought into its organising committee to strengthen the Fianna representation. He was arrested and jailed on several occasions under The Defence Of The Realm Act.

We do not seek to make this country, a materially great country at the expense of its honour in any way whatsoever. We would rather, have this country poor and indignant; we would rather have the people of Ireland eking out a poor existence on the soil; so long as they possessed their souls, their minds, and their honour. This fight has been for something more than the fleshpots of Empire – Liam Mellows (1895-1922).

Chris Bray: Too Bad You're Missing it.

I've been writing constantly about the Boston College subpoenas since early last summer, and two kinds of interest have sustained my attention. I'm interested in the case itself, in the specifics of the subpoenas and the particulars of the ongoing exchange between governments, researchers, and academic institutions.

But I'm also interested in the thing more generally, for what it broadly represents about the condition of our political and cultural institutions. (Hint: bad.) And it's been endlessly fascinating to compare what I know from court documents and conversations to what I see in the newspapers. My verdict on the news coverage has been pretty consistent: Are you fucking kidding me? 

Child 44

Cold War USSR, and the air is treacly with suspicion. Neighbour spies on neighbour, denunciation quickly follows, dissident turns in dissident and 12 is the legal execution age. The State secret police are everywhere apart from the right place. They chase after teachers and writers but lack the imagination to catch a serial chid killer.  The wrong suspect is the paradox at the heart of a society built on suspicion.

The atmosphere Tom Rob Smith creates in Child 44 may or may not capture what life really was like under Soviet Stalinism. Some readers might conclude it sails close to the wind of propaganda. Reading it simultaneously to Alan’s Bulloch’s work on Stalin and Stalinism tends to challenge that.

Chris Bray: Obvious Lying Tends to be a Bad Public Relations Tactic

Yesterday, in this post, I discussed a videotaped interview that RTÉ conducted with Boston College spokesman Jack Dunn, who babbled an unusually large amount of vicious bullshit, even by his usual standards.

Today, that video is gone. Go look.

RTÉ apparently figured out that they had been used as a vessel for a series of dishonest and personally nasty claims that were easily disproved. Good for them, but if only they had figured it out before they posted the video in the first place.

Reply To Hachey & O'Neill

Tonight the Pensive Quill carries a response from Anthony McIntyre and Ed Moloney to an op ed piece in the Irish Times written by Bob O'Neill and Tom Hachey of Boston College. Unfortunately, the Irish Times, supposedly a paper of record, refused to allow a right of reply to go on the record. A right to reply is a standard feature of most newspapers. Why the Old Lady of D'Olier Street surrendered her intellectual promiscuity and opted to breach the long standing principle is something only it can explain, if indeed an explanation as distinct from an excuse exists.  It was considerate enough to Boston College in the first place by allowing its representatives to make a case consistent with the College's moral torpitude. 

*  *  *

It is an astounding abdication of responsibility that the trustees of Boston College, through their employees, Robert K. O’Neill, the Burns Librarian, and Professor Thomas E. Hachey should seek to lay culpability at the door of their researcher Anthony McIntyre for the Boston College tapes debacle while wrongfully accusing Ed Moloney of contempt of court.

At the same time they ignore the egregious hypocrisy of the PSNI, which has chosen not to pursue former RUC officers who allowed double agents in the IRA and UVF to murder at will and whose actions both threaten the lives of BC’s researchers and the wellbeing of the peace process in Northern Ireland. Nor do they take the US Attorney General to task for ignoring his obligation under international treaties not to assist in the pursuit of offenses preceding the Good Friday Agreement.

Chris Bray: Nope

Judge William Young has denied the government's request that he reconsider his "final order" in the matter of the Boston College subpoenas. A brief note on Pacer says that Young denied the motion as moot, which means he accepted BC's explanations regarding the remaining materials in the Belfast Project collection. Loyalist interviews are safe from surrender, for now. Note that the court has shown itself willing to listen to BC's representations regarding the contents of their archives.

The Pope in the Dock

Fortnight Magazine: December 2011/January 2012

Abusing children from as far back as 153 AD, the Catholic Church has persistently covered up the crimes of its own. While some conservatives are inclined to attribute a supposed upsurge in attacks on children to the more progressive atmosphere ushered in by Vatican II, this overlooks a history which shows cardinals and bishops ignoring the pleas from a priest, Gerald Fitzgerald prior to the Second Vatican Council, to halt the policy of permitting paedophile priests to remain ‘on duty or wandering from diocese to diocese.’

And so it continued to the point where a paedophile priest could appear in a US documentary telling how he had been moved to five parishes, raping children as he went. It is far from an isolated case.  The range of countries where the Church has been raping and covering up is staggering. There was ‘intensive trafficking of child molesting priests from Germany, Italy, Ireland and the US to Nigeria, South Africa, Mozambique and the Congo.’  We may wonder if Church rules kicked in and the Christian gentlemen were forbidden from taking condoms with them. How the men of god in the Vatican lied and deceived in defence of their paedophile priests defies moral imagination. Cardinal Groer of Austria abused an estimated 2000 boys in his Church career. He was hidden in a nunnery by the Vatican and never brought to trial. 

Chris Bray: Boston College: Someone Learned to Read

On Wednesday afternoon, Judge William Young will hold yet another hearing in the matter of the PSNI's fishing expedition in the Boston College archives. This latest development follows Young's recent order that BC hand over a new set of IRA interviews to the government, and the DOJ's argument that the judge hadn't gone far enough and there were possibly still more archived materials that BC should be compelled to surrender.

In response to the DOJ's declaration of endless hunger, BC's outside lawyer has offered a short and remarkable document (see below). Remember that BC gave the court every IRA interview in its Belfast Project collection for in camera review, after telling Young that no one at the university had any idea which archived materials were responsive to the government's subpoenas. But they did not give the court the other half of that collection, which is made up of interviews with members of loyalist paramilitaries that were active in Northern Ireland during the Troubles.