The BelTel

Gerry Adams features heavily in now declassified documents and reveal that the British considered him, along with Martin McGuinness, to be the leaders of republicanism.  Mr Adams denies ever being a member of the IRA, but a formerly secret document includes a claim that he was re-elected to the Army Council in 1996.  Another document records a former IRA man, then a member of the Workers Party telling the Government that he was told by Adams in Long Kesh that he would be prepared ‘to wade up to my knees in Protestant blood to a united Ireland’ - something Adams says he never said or believed.  The Belfast Telegraph’s Northern Ireland Editor, Sam McBride, joins Ciarán Dunbar on the BelTel.  

Rory McIlroy has joined Jack Nicklaus, Nick Faldo and Tiger Woods in the exclusive club of men who have won the Masters back-to-back. At Augusta National on Sunday night the co. Down man produced an assured performance to win by a single shot.Can Northern Ireland’s most famous son add more majors to his CV and where does he rank in the grand pantheon of golfing greats?Keith Bailie is joined by Belfast Telegraph Chief Sportswriter Steven Beacom and Chief Audience Editor Gareth Hanna.

On a spring morning in June 2001 an eight-year-old girl gathers moss for her grandmother’s hanging baskets in a forest near Ballinamore in Co Leitrim. The child lets out a scream, she had discovered a body.  The remains belonged to Enniskillen businessman, Gerry McGinley and it was clear that he been murdered.  He had been killed by his own wife Julie and her lover, in fact they were already in custody over it.  But it wasn’t a simple tale of adultery. It involved hotel sex with strangers, lies, blackmail and videotape – and included many prominent people in Fermanagh.  Andrew Madden researched this sordid story for the Belfast Telegraph. 

30 years on from the violent killing of publican Tom Nevin, part two of this special podcast looks at how Nevin's wife, Catherine Nevin, emerged as the prime suspect; the murder trial and media blitz that followed; and why Ireland’s ‘Black Widow’ still fascinates us to this day.  Host: Fionnán Sheahan  Guest: Mary Wilson  

Thirty years ago, Wicklow publican Tom Nevin was shot dead as he counted the takings following a busy day at Jack White’s Inn. Initially, the incident appeared to be a robbery gone wrong, but grieving wife Catherine Nevin would eventually emerge as the prime suspect and later come to be known as ‘The Black Widow’. On the first of a two-part special, we look back at how one of Ireland’s most famous criminals came into the spotlight. Host: Fionnán Sheahan Guest: Mary Wilson

Roger Casement was hanged in August 1916 for treason against the Crown. Formerly Sir Roger, his assistance to Germany during the First World Ward was undeniable and from a British point of view he was a traitor.  From from an Irish nationalist point of view, he was a rebel and a hero who now took his place in history among the martyrs of republicanism and the leader of the 1916 Rising.   No knight of the realm had faced treason charges for centuries, let alone be executed. His story was without precedent.  A Protestant Anglo-Irish man who had been a loyal servant of the British empire, he had exposed horrific abuses of indigenous people in Africa and South America. But he then came to believe Ireland urgently needed to free itself of Britain.  Who was this complex individual and how did he end up being killed by the state he had served?    Casement is a subject of a new book – A Rebel And A Traitor – by Rory Carroll, the Guardian's Ireland correspondent.  He joined Sam McBride on 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.