CORK, Ireland — There have been tentative suggestions in Ireland recently that relations with the UK are at an all-time high. Despite the efforts of dissident groups, the people of Northern Ireland have worn a remarkably durable united front in their vocal support for peace. But sometimes it’s tricky to walk away from the past—even when you’re 3,000 miles away from it.

Boston College is on the ropes this week after the US attorney general (at the behest of the P.S.N.I Serious Crime Branch) issued a subpoena for confidential archived interviews with former IRA and loyalist members. The interviews had been conducted 10 years ago as part of an oral history project on the conflict in Northern Ireland.

The interviews contain more than 50 personal accounts from individuals who had been involved on both sides of The Troubles. The project was directed by author and former Irish Times and Sunday Tribune journalist, Ed Moloney. Mr. Moloney has since published a book (and subsequent film documentary) entitled Voices from the Grave which is based on interviews with ex-IRA member Brendan ‘The Dark’ Hughes who died in 2008, and former UVF prisoner and politician David Ervine, who died in 2007.

Former IRA member Anthony McIntyre interviewed Hughes and other IRA dissidents, including Dolours Price, who was convicted and imprisoned for her role in the bombing of The Old Bailey criminal court in London in 1973. Meanwhile, loyalist Wilson McArthur interviewed the unionist participants.

In particular, the PSNI are interested in alleged comments made my Hughes and Price in the interviews which suggest that prominent Irish politician and Sinn Féin party leader Gerry Adams oversaw an IRA unit that was responsible for kidnappings and disappearances in the 1970s, most notably that of Jean McConville. Hughes and Price were both close allies of Adams until an ideological falling-out some years ago. The allegations could have enormous implications for Belfast-born Adams who recently resigned his seat in Westminster in order to run for election in the Dáil in the Republic’s recent general election. Although Mr. Adams has continually denied being a member of the IRA, his involvement in the organisation has long been presupposed by the media and general public.

There are other implications however. The revelations thought to be contained in the interviews were disclosed on the condition that the material would not be released in the lifetime of the participants. Indeed, in a promotional clip of Ed Moloney’s Voices From the Grave documentary, you can hear this pledge of secrecy in a conversation between McIntyre and Hughes:

“Do you have a problem with committing all this to secret tapes to be used only after you have died?”

“I don’t have a problem with that. If I did have a problem with that I wouldn’t be sitting here talking into the microphone. And I think a lot of the stuff I’m saying here, I’m saying it in trust, because I have a trust in you. And I have never, ever, ever, admitted to being a member of the IRA. Never. I’ve just done it here.”

There are clear questions as to how this subpoena might threaten the safety of all those who contributed to the oral history project. While Hughes and others have since passed away, there are many still who are alive and whose wellbeing might now be at risk.

In addition to this problem, the case could potentially undermine the entire academic field of oral history. Speaking to The New York Times, Mary Marshall Clark, director of Columbia University’s Oral History Research Office, described the situation as “our worst-case scenario.”

Blast spoke with Dr. Rob Perks, the director of Oral Histories at the British Library about the case and the stance it holds on this turn of events.

“The British Library will, wherever possible, seek not to disclose restricted confidential oral history interviews,” he said. The comment demonstrates the reluctance of those involved in oral history undertakings to betray the privacy the field needs to function, but his words came with a caveat.

“Such obligations of confidentiality may be overridden by certain legal requirements. Disclosure of confidential material to meet a legal requirement may be mandatory, and beyond the Library’s reasonable control.”

Should the subpoena be successful, project director Ed Moloney has not ruled out the radical move of destroying the tapes as a protective measure, although he stressed that it would be an option of last resort.

Hundreds of Boston College students and other Brighton residents were without power, some for more than a day, late last week.

On December 9, around 3 p.m., a transformer failed on Commonwealth Avenue, NSTAR confirmed. A second transformer failed shortly later. A total of 177 customers were without power for 12 hours, and another 18 were without power for 5 hours. Dozens more were without power from anywhere to a half hour to a few hours, and NSTAR spokesman Dennis Galvam.

One of the manholes that needed to be accessed to restore power was blocked by debris, so a cleanup crew had to be called in, Galvam said. This added to the delay in restoring power to all residents.

“Around 3 a.m., the workers gave a shout of celebration, and the electricity was restored,” said Brighton resident Glenn Willis. “I got up a few hours later, and worked until 8:30am, when the electricity then went out again.” His power wasn’t fully restored until Thursday afternoon.

Galvam said that additional problems with the repair meant 200 more customers were without power from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m. Thursday morning.

Boston College junior Lisa Relle said the power went out on her block in Brighton, which is home to dozens of off-campus BC students.

“Students have been scrambling to find places to sleep and do work during this busy time of year,” Relle said.

Willis said he was disappointed when he called NSTAR and didn’t get a direct answer about when the power would be back.

“I was a bit stunned at NSTAR’s communicative incompetence,” he said. “It is not fair to consumers, who have little choice in the matter of electrical providers, to keep us completely ‘in the dark’ for so long in terms of information, particularly during such cold weather.”

Galvam said that the NSTAR call center was receiving a lot of calls from customers last week and that the weather was particularly foul, adding to problems. He said that customers can always call 800-592-2000 with questions.

CHESTNUT HILL — Imagine walking into someone’s home and seeing a child’s drawing on the refrigerator. It’s filled from edge to edge with bright colors, wobbly lines and adorable depictions of everyday scenes. Now imagine taking a closer look at that drawing and noticing that in it there is a helicopter shooting bullets at a person who’s lying dead on the ground with blood coming out of his head. Meanwhile, a lime green and pink tank spits bullets at a cozy yellow and orange home made up of the most basic of shapes.

A child who escaped the nightmare in Darfur drew this disturbing image coated in candy colors.

That drawing is among a set of 500 others done by child refuges of Darfur as part of a traveling exhibition called Waging Peace.‚  The event is sponsored by Boston College’s center for Human Rights and International Justice, and the Center for the Arts and Social Responsibilities.

In 2007, Waging Peace member Anna Schmitt went to the country of Chad to learn about the living situations and humanitarian rights of Darfuri and Chadian refugees. Schmitt began collecting testimonials from adults in these areas when her focus turned to the youth, who had witnessed just as much terror as their elders. Schmitt handed out paper and pencils to kids between the ages of 6 and 18, and asked them to draw their future hopes and their strongest memories. What she found were honest depictions of the horror that these children witnessed in their everyday lives.

The government of Sudan’s story of the events that have unfolded in the past four years is not surprisingly very different from the pictures drawn by the children. What makes this exhibit fascinating is that the viewer enters with the back-of-the-mind thought that children have no reason to dramatize or fabricate their illustrations. At this age they are naƒ¯ve to the workings of politics and of government and its role in the gore and terror that they witnessed.

They just drew what they saw.

The sketches in the exhibit feature a number of elaborate events. Just as an American child might draw a scene from their home or school, the Darfuri children depict villages on fire, men on horseback shooting machine guns into crowds, and tanks and helicopters shooting into the air and dropping bombs on towns. The one common element that ties all of the drawings together is the blatant, and obvious red scribbles. Thick red smudges draw the viewer’s eye to outlines of adults, animals, and babies that lie on the floor of the representational villages, unmistakably and brutally murdered.

The images serve a duel purpose. While serving as a form of therapy for children that have obviously been emotionally scarred, the pictures also serve as an eye opener to audiences that may be unaware of the crisis that has taken over Darfur. The illustrations also provide evidence that there is much more brutality happening in Darfur than is being represented by its government. Therefore, many of the pictures will be submitted as evidence to the International Criminal Courts in the proceedings against officials of Sudan that have denied policies of genocide. The drawings certainly bring a level of awareness of the tragedy in Darfur to Boston, and shows how art therapy can be a useful tool when helping children and others deal with a crisis.