The significance of Paul Bew’s name on Anthony McIntyre’s employment contract lies in the simple fact that he signed it.
(The law, when it is good law, deals with facts, acts and legal consequences but journalists deal with facts, acts and the wider context)Needless to say, I got a big reaction to my article on Lord Paul Bew and his witnessing of Anthony McIntyre’s February 2001 employment contract with Boston College. The contract shows McIntyre being engaged as an interviewer of "republican activists" (anti-Gerry Adams republican activists as we now know). See directly below on this site
- http://www.fadooda.com/index.php?itemid=627
However, some readers have made the fair point that Lord Bew witnessing this contracting does not mean that he was endorsing the contents of the contract and they are quite right.
But – and this is a very important “but”.
Unless Lord Bew was led blindfold to the table on which the contract lay or unless, as they say in Belfast parlance, he came up the river Lagan in a bubble, he was well aware that what he was witnessing (regardless of the actual requirements for hiring McIntyre etc.) was an employment contract between Anthony McIntyre, Ed Moloney and Boston College. That same Boston College where he had proposed this same project not much more than a year or so before.
Lord Paul Bew has never mentioned this contract – anywhere that I can see, but I will keep searching for a quote from him.
He had a perfect opportunity to refer to the contract he witnessed in last week’s Sunday Independent where he describes his relationship with McIntyre at some length and could have easily said - and by the way I should mention that I witnessed his employment contract. This would not have implied that he approved the content of that contract, but one would have thought that it was an important detail for the UK’s senior guardian of ethics in public life to mention. Something he would want to make clear.
What does Paul Bew actually say in the Sunday Independent article?
Look:
“On my return to Belfast, I ceased to work for Boston College. I did not know who was interviewed, much less hear any of the tapes. I did not take part in any of the discussions about the legalities and protocols governing the process.”
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/the-closure-of-the-boston-college-troubles-archive-is-historical-loss-30263223.html
Let us take Lord Bew’s words above to be true for a moment, despite all the evidence to the contrary.
But then let us look anew at the February 2001 Boston College employment contract that he witnessed.
For Lord Bew would be asking us to believe the following, were he to claim that his signature on McIntyre’s employment contract does not demonstrate his ongoing links to the infamous Boston tapes enterprise:
1) He was at Boston College for a year 1999-2000 as a visiting scholar (true)
2) In 1999-2000 he raised the idea of a “Troubles” oral history project with Boston College (true)
3) He didn’t propose Ed Moloney as Project Coordinator (unbelievable)
4) He had no influence in the choice of his former PHD student Anthony McIntyre as project interviewer (unbelievable)
5) He didn’t notice that the 2001 contract to which he was witness was an employment contract between Boston College and Ed Moloney/Anthony McIntyre (unbelievable)
6) Neither Ed Moloney, nor Anthony McIntyre explained the nature of the contract when inviting him to sign it (unbelievable)
7) He was led to the contract table blindfold (unbelievable)
8) He was not aware that both Moloney and McIntyre were against the peace process, a vital part of which was Gerry Adams (unbelievable)
9) After proposing the Boston tapes project and witnessing a Boston College contract form, he never asked these two people he admires so much how their project was getting along (unbelievable)
10) It is impossible that his own clear animus against Gerry Adams may have affected his judgement (unbelievable)
Paul Larkin
An Charraig, Gaoth Dobhair
Mí Bealtaine 2014