Episode 14 of Bramcast welcomes Ed Moloney.

Today we’re joined by Ed Moloney. Ed Moloney is an award-winning journalist and author, and one of the most authoritative writers on the troubles in Northern Ireland.

Covering the region since 1978, he served as northern editor of the irish times from 1981-85, and northern editor of the sunday tribune from 1987-2001. He was awarded Irish journalist of the year in 1999. After the good friday agreement, Ed moloney, Aaong with Dr. Anthony McIntyre, started the Belfast project , otherwise known as the boston college tapes, an oral history archive of interviews with former Paramilitary members in Northern Ireland. 

His book “Voices from The Grave, Two Mens War in Ireland”, was based on interviews from this archive, and told the stories of IRA commander Brendan Hughes and UVF member and subsequent PUP politician, David Irvine, in a manner that they could not tell to the broader public while living. 

He has also written a biography of Ian Paisley, “Paisley, from Demagogue to Democrat”, and produced two documentary films, “Voices from The Grave”, on the same topic as the book, and “I, Dolores”, a film about the life of the late Dolores Price, also completed with interviews while she was alive. Today, we discuss his book, “A Secret History of the IRA”, which has been described as the best history of the paramilitary organisation ever written.

We talk about the genesis of the Provisional IRA, and the causes of their split from the Official IRA in 1969. We delve into the early days of the Provos, the 1974 ceasefire, and Gerry Adams’ swift ascent to the top of the organisation. Was Adams ever ideological? How did he hold such sway over the organisation from inside Long Kesh? How, and why, did he move the IRA towards electoral politics and ceasefires when he had launched scathing attacks on the early Provo leadership for doing much the same things?

These are all questions Ed and I discuss. We close on what Ed would add to the third edition of “A secret history of the IRA”, were he to release one, and what he would say to the a generation of people that have grown up without any memory of the troubles. 

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