
Advertisement
Advertisement
I joined in 1973 when I turned 16. I’m from South Belfast, and I didn’t come from a republican background, but I romanticized the movement nonetheless. Growing up, you’d see people being arrested or shot in the street. If a foreign army did the same in London, what would people who lived there do?Your activity landed you imprisoned in Long Kesh for 18 years, four years of which were on blanket protest, alongside the 1981 hunger strike. What did you do?
I was convicted of shooting a member of the Loyalist paramilitary group, the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), in 1976, for which I was given a life sentence. When it happened I was the leader of the IRA in South Belfast, and I’d been given impetus to shoot this man under the auspices of senior command, because our intelligence believed he was an armed member of the UVF.What was it like in Long Kesh?
It was tough. It was a battle against the prison administration. We were locked in cells 24 hours a day, 365 days a year without reading material except the Bible, which was used as toilet and cigarette paper. During that time, the hunger strikes confirmed my hatred for the British, but I’ve since also learned of disputed evidence suggesting Sinn Féin had the opportunity to broker a deal, which I’m inclined to believe.When were you released from prison?
I was released in 1992 when they were releasing life-sentence prisoners. Ten months later I started a PhD in history at Queen's University in Belfast. I’d already completed a degree via the Open University while still in prison after punitive measures had eased. I also did some freelance journalism and wrote about how the republican project had disintegrated.
Advertisement

It was a republican capitulation, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing—the IRA surrendered in 1916 as well, don’t forget. I no longer believe there's any justification for an armed campaign, but I'm not going to pretend that the Good Friday Agreement was a victory for republicanism. It was a serious defeat. What the British government did was strategically include republicans but exclude republicanism. Today, it seems to me that all Sinn Féin has done is chase office, when what they should have done is stayed out of such institutions and pursued their radical position through lobbying and protest—not by becoming the people they previously opposed, and not through armed conflict.The Boston College project began in 2001, three years after Good Friday. Why did it start?
It just needed to be done. It felt like the armed conflict was over, even though the IRA had yet to announce it, which they did in 2005. It seemed a good time to capture these people’s stories before they died, and a dominant “official” history could suppress the multiplicity of narratives that these voices represent.
Advertisement
Many of the people I interviewed I knew or had previous experience with. Nonetheless, whether they were pro- or anti-Sinn Féin, what mattered was that I could trust them not to tell anyone about the project, particularly members of Sinn Féin’s leadership.Who did you imagine would listen to these tapes?
I hoped that whoever got access to them would use them to create a reconstruction of republicanism so as to examine its motives. Each interview we did was embargoed until after the interviewee had died, and we were given a cast-iron guarantee by Boston College that they would not hand over the tapes—a guarantee that turned out to be worth fuck all.And Gerry Adams got arrested because of that broken guarantee. How do you feel about that?
It's not a good feeling. It causes me great anguish that people have been arrested, because this was not what the project was about. The project was about gathering historical evidence, not prosecution evidence. I did not want to make a political intervention. Whether other people wanted to use it for that purpose is another matter. I didn't want to use it to have a go at Gerry Adams.Surely you were aware of the potential risk that the material would be used in this way?
I wasn't, no. Absolutely not. Why would I have done them in the first place if this was the case?Sinn Féin has claimed these tapes were compiled in order to get people in trouble. What's your response?
The argument that it was "maliciously compiled" would have to show that there was some intellectual dishonesty, and that we prompted people to say things that weren't true to maliciously present Gerry Adams as a member of the IRA.
Advertisement
No. I reject the idea that people were chosen simply because they would have a go at Gerry Adams. I don't see the historical value of doing that. Perhaps there was a structural tendency to get people who were not sympathetic to Sinn Fein, but I don't believe that undermines their testimony, because Sinn Féin should not be allowed to determine what the truth is.

I don’t, no. There’s never going to be a way of appeasing everyone. I don't see how it can be done. All I think you can do is recover as many narratives as possible so that historians can arrive at judgments. But a more just society has to be based on the future, because ultimately the dead don’t vote.What do you hope happens in Northern Ireland? Are you still a republican?
To me, republicanism is over. But can I see a future for republicans if they behave in a rational manner and pursue justice and politics. Unfortunately, there are still people who think that political violence is the way forward, but for me it's an absolute waste.Thanks for speaking with me, Anthony.Follow Huw Nesbitt on Twitter.