Gerry Adams arrest: peace process in Northern Ireland can’t take much more pressure

By any standards, the murder of Jean McConville stands out during the troubles. She was a mother of ten with no connection to the violence. She was killed by the IRA, who did not admit to the killing but instead hid her body until it was discovered in 2003. That the body was discovered at all was down to the ongoing pursuit for truth of her children and family, and the deals of the peace process itself. In 1999 the IRA agreed to respond to the claims of the families of the “disappeared.” This was a group of sixteen victims of the troubles whose situation was similar to that of McConville in that, unlike many other IRA killings, there had never been an institutional admission of responsibility and no bodies have ever been found.

Westminster had passed legislation that provided that no forensic evidence from the bodies or exhumations could be used subsequently in criminal proceedings. This limited trade-off between truth and accountability, which received remarkably little attention at the time, enabled the IRA’s cooperation (not successful in all cases —- seven bodies were never found and admissions of responsibility were not made in all cases).

The Boston tapes
With the arrest (and freeing without charge) of Gerry Adams, the question of accountability for Jean McConville’s murder is more firmly on the table. It came about following an academic project at Boston College that recorded interviews with former combatants about their role in the conflict under guarantee of confidentiality until their death. Allegedly some confessed to involvement in killings or implicated others.

The Northern Ireland Police Service last year succeeded in obtaining the transcripts after fighting a lengthy legal battle in the U.S. courts. The police service has since apparently been re-opening and investigating all the killings cases that the transcripts touch on. There have already been arrests and charges in relation to Jean McConville’s murder.

Adams denies any involvement. The arrest is likely to widen cracks in the peace process. It is difficult for the Northern Irish assembly to withstand the pressures of the past without having a wider process that deals with all its elements.