The killing and secret burial of Jean McConville raise important and disturbing questions about the fitness of those involved to hold public office today, writes Ed Moloney
It is entirely understandable that people have grasped Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan's recent statement about Jean McConville as proof positive that the widowed mother of 10 who was murdered and "disappeared" by the IRA in 1972 was never an informer for the British army. As the ombudsman herself said, the McConville family's suffering was made all the worse by the allegation; most people will, for obvious reasons, want to accept that her name has now been cleared.
Terrible though all the circumstances surrounding her death are, this story is about much more than whether or not Jean McConville worked for the military or whether she deserved to die. It is important to remember that it is also about the war crime that was committed by the then leadership of the IRA's Belfast brigade when they decided, for reasons of expediency, not just to kill her but to bury her body in secret and then to lie for many years afterwards to her family and society about what really happened.
That war crime, essentially indistinguishable from anything General Pinochet and the Chilean junta perpetrated, continues to resonate to this day and reflects very badly on the current political leadership of the movement responsible. The Jean McConville affair, along with other instances of the Belfast IRA "disappearing" people during these years, also raises legitimate questions about the fitness of such people to hold public office today.
It is, therefore, important that as much of the truth behind the affair, untainted by sentimental considerations, enters the public domain.
In the course of writing my book, A Secret History of the IRA, I researched the Jean McConville killing in some depth and nothing that Nuala O'Loan has said changes my view that she was killed because the IRA believed she was working as a low-level spotter for the army in Divis Flats and that she carried on spying after ignoring a warning to desist.
I also believe that the decision to take her to a beach on Carlingford Lough, kill her and then bury her in secret, was taken after a dispute within the leadership of the Belfast IRA was won by one senior figure who argued that the IRA would suffer a public relations disaster if it became known that it had killed a widowed mother of 10 whose background was Protestant.
Others had said that the IRA should come clean about what it had done and why, as it normally did with other alleged informers. They lost the argument.
The account that I wrote was based upon interviews with several IRA members who were involved in the incident. While some have claimed that by so doing I have "done a job" for the IRA, as one report put it, it is important to remember that these people took a huge risk talking to me. They were not authorised by the IRA to speak to me and they would be in serious trouble with the IRA if their names ever became known.
They were motivated, I believe, not because of a wish to malign Jean McConville, but because of their unease over the decision to "disappear" her ordered by their leaders.
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the IRA leadership would never have cleared the grisly detail of this story for publication - least of all to me - and that whatever comments they have made about Jean McConville have come reluctantly and only after pressure.
Nor is there any doubt that they would rather the subject disappeared from the headlines forever.
Notwithstanding all this, there are questions about the Ombudsman's statement. In one breath, Mrs O'Loan said that her investigators had "found no evidence" to support the charge against Mrs McConville, yet she also berated the inadequate police investigation of her disappearance at the time. According to one report, which quoted an unnamed official in her office: "There is a large gap in the paperwork and either it was never there or it went missing - it's not clear whether it was ever there or was lost." Is this perhaps one reason why no evidence could be found?
Those in the British military who continued to run Jean McConville even after she had been warned by the IRA to stop spying share in the culpability for her death and therefore have a motive to engineer other "large gaps" in the paperwork.
Jean McConville's murder and secret burial took place at a time when it had become established practice by the Belfast Brigade leadership to "disappear" people whose particular activities as informers would, if they became publicly known, embarrass or cast doubt on the counter-intelligence skills of that leadership. Kevin McKee, Seamus Wright and, later, Eamon Molloy fell into this category and Jean McConville's "disappearance" was part of a pattern.
On the other hand, the alternative explanation for Jean McConville's death - that she was killed because she comforted a dying soldier - suffers seriously from a factual deficit. Although this version is undoubtedly held for genuine and good reasons, this explanation produces more questions than answers.
There is no precedent for the IRA killing people for this type of reason, nor a record of a public warning from the IRA at this time not to comfort or come to the aid of wounded soldiers. On the contrary, in some areas during these turbulent years, it was not unknown for local people, even hardline IRA supporters, to whisper the act of contrition into the ears of injured and dying soldiers without any reprisals. These were Catholic districts after all, and the IRA would be taking a risk defying the religious customs and beliefs of their own community.
Not only that, but salient facts which by now should be common knowledge have not yet surfaced. What was the name of the soldier who was mortally wounded? What regiment was he in? When did this incident happen? What were the circumstances? Are there any eye-witnesses and, if so, why have they not told their story before now?
The Jean McConville story is full of tragedy, especially for her still grieving family. But it is also about the morality and character of those who took the decision to "disappear" her and then lie about it. It would be wrong, in the controversy over what Jean McConville did or did not do, if that aspect was lost sight of.