The BelTel

Belfast poet, Sinéad Morrisey, was brought up in a Communist family. Hers was a childhood lived in the little world created by the party, a world apart from others and from the Troubles.  It involved smoke-filled rooms, endless meetings, and dreams of a future utopia – coupled with a belief that east of the Iron Curtain, there were people already living in it.   The fall of Communism in the eastern block was more than an historical event for her family – it was the end of a dream and of a way of life.  Sinéad Morrisey’s new memoir is called ‘Among Communists’. She joined Ciarán Dunbar to explain the book and her story. 

Members of the jury in the Noah Donohoe inquest have been asked to indicate their availability for the month of May.  The inquest officially began on the 19th of January and was expected to finish up in mid-March.  Fourteen-year-old Noah’s body was discovered in north Belfast on the 27 of June 2020 - six days after he had gone missing.   This week an anonymous witness at the inquest denied being the caller who informed police that Daryl Paul had been trying to sell Noah Donohoe’s laptop.  Liam Tunney has been covering the inquest for the Belfast Telegraph. 

It was supposed to be an oral record of the Troubles, made by the paramilitaries, and initially the ‘Boston Tapes’ project seemed like a really good idea, albeit one which would include descriptions of violence and terror. The concept was simple – former paramilitaries would be interviewed, the tapes would then be kept in storage, and their stories only revealed after the interviewee’s deaths. But it became clear that the scheme was flawed and that the recordings were not as secret as participants assumed.Now the Belfast Telegraph can reveal that the Boston College tapes archive has been formally closed - and will remain so for 75 years from when it was first createdWhat was the Boston Tapes project?What went wrong?And why have the records been sealed?Ciarán Dunbar is joined by Belfast Telegraph reporter, Andrew Madden.

Murderer Stephen McCullagh has been aptly described as “a monster hiding in plain sight”.A week on from his conviction there has been a lot of reaction to the the nerd-culture YouTuber’s conviction of murdering Natalie McNally.He denied the killing, but the jury unanimously found him guilty in a matter of hours. He has yet to be given his tariff, but Natalie’s family says he should never be let out. They say he is simply “too dangerous to let out on the street”.Meanwhile, the Sunday Life has revealed that a film made by McCullagh as a student chillingly foretold the murder and how he pretended to be one of our journalists to find out what evidence the cops had on him. The Sunday Life’s Angela Davison joins Ciarán Dunbar with some of the stories which could not be told whilst the trial was ongoing and what has emerged since McCullagh’s conviction.This podcast was amended at 10:00 am on Monday 30th March in order to correct an error. A previous version mentioned in the podcast intro that 'McNally' made a video whilst a student, when it should have said 'McCullagh' made a video as a student.

The jury at the inquest into the death of Noah Donohoe has now heard nine weeks of evidence – the process could last until May.  This week they heard more on how police dealt with CCTV footage of the missing teenager and how his school books were found in a Belfast flat.  A police officer also revealed that he was briefed before he spoke to the inquest. Liam Tunney is covering the Noah Donohoe inquest for the Belfast Telegraph.

‘How I stumbled on Stormont’s new policy of extreme censorship - which means we’ll understand NI’s past less fully’.   That was the stark headline on a recent comment piece from my colleague Sam McBride – the Belfast Telegraph’s Northern Ireland editor.   He discovered the unannounced policy whilst exploring declassified files in London - a policy which has been used to cover-up official attitudes to the Famine.   Sam McBride joins Ciarán Dunbar to explain the story behind the headline.Stormont’s extreme censorship of Famine remarks – and how we unravelled it

Stephen McCullagh has been found guilty of murdering Lurgan woman Natalie McNally.  The jury unanimously convicted 36-year-old McCullagh, of Woodland Gardens in Lisburn, of killing the 32-year-old mother to be in December 2022.  The four-week trial heard how McCullagh murdered Ms McNally after setting up a “false alibi” that he was livestreaming a video gaming session on YouTube. McCullagh has been given a life-sentence.  Ciarán Dunbar is joined by Allison Morris, who was following the trial in court.  

IRA leader Rory O’Connor was once a close comrade of fellow republican Michael Collins and Kevin O’Higgins - indeed he was O’Higgins best man.   But just over a year later after the wedding, O’Higgins signed his friend’s death warrant.    O’Connor’s execution along with Liam Mellows, Dick Barrett and Joe McKelvey, added to the bitterness of Ireland’s civil war and made O’Connor a republican martyr, albeit a forgotten one.   In ‘To defend the Republic’, the first biography of O’Connor’s life, historian Gerard Shannon tells the story of this enigmatic IRA figure. 

UPDATE: Victims drop High Court claim against Gerry Adams over IRA bombingsFor decades, Gerry Adams has denied being a member of the Provisional IRA. Now, for the first time, that claim is being challenged in an English courtroom. Three men, all victims of separate IRA bombings, have taken civil action against the former Sinn Féin leader for the symbolic sum of £1 in damages.  Host: Tessa Fleming, Guests: Kurtis Reid, John Downing.