IRA associate in BC case has no remorse for role in killing

One of the people at the center of Boston College’s controversial oral history project on the Provisional Irish Republican Army spoke out Monday about her role in the 1972 kidnapping and killing of a mother of 10 who was thought to be an informer.

In an interview with the CBS Evening News, Dolours Price expressed no regret for her actions in the slaying of Jean McConville, accused by the IRA of giving information to the British government, nor in the 1973 car bombing at London’s “Old Bailey” courthouse.

Price, whose sister Marian was also active in the IRA, said she drove the car used in McConville’s abduction and knew McConville could end up dead.

Asked if she was bothered by her involvement in the 40-year-old murder, Price said, “No. No, not at all.”

The Price sisters and other IRA members were convicted in the car bombing, which injured hundreds.

Dolours Price previously shared the story of her years in the IRA with researchers from BC’s Belfast Project, which sought to document the decades of violence in Northern Ireland known as The Troubles.

Between 2001 and 2006, researchers recorded interviews with members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army and other paramilitary and political organizations, with the understanding that the tapes would not be released until the interviewees died.

But in July 2011, the British government issued subpoenas through the US Department of Justice under a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty between the countries. British authorities are seeking interviews and other materials on the project from BC to help the Police Service of Northern Ireland investigate McConville’s slaying.

In December 2011, US District Court Judge William G. Young ordered BC to hand over the materials, but researchers Ed Moloney and former IRA gunman Anthony McIntyre have continued to fight the release. Their lives will be in danger, the researchers have said, if the tapes are released.

The Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston upheld Young’s ruling on the Price tapes in July, but in late August Moloney and McIntyre said they would take their case to the US Supreme Court.

On Sept. 7, a BC attorney argued before the appeals court that any materials surrendered must be “directly related” to the McConville killing. The court did not issue an immediate ruling.

In Monday’s television interview, Price said that if she is to be held accountable for her actions, the same should be true of Gerry Adams, the Irish politician who leads Sinn Féin, Northern Ireland’s largest nationalist political party.

Price said Adams, who helped broker the IRA’s 1994 cease-fire agreement and has denied personal involvement in paramilitary actions, gave her the order to bomb the Old Bailey.