Drogheda becomes a place where the consequences of the Belfast Project move from the legal and personal threat of a subpoena to a difficult, unresolved conversation about Jean McConville’s killing. Anthony McIntyre first receives notice at home that authorities are seeking his recorded interview; two years later, in a restaurant on the River Boyne, he and his wife Carrie hear the case for Marian Price’s alleged role in the killing. In both scenes, Drogheda frames what can be disclosed—and what remains unconfirmed.

The Subpoena at Home

In April 2016, McIntyre was at home in Drogheda when he opened an email from a Boston lawyer. Boston College had been served with a subpoena seeking his Belfast Project interview. The authorities alleged that he had been involved in several crimes, including membership in a paramilitary organisation, possession of an imitation firearm while in prison in 1978, and an operation involving a pipe bomb in Belfast.

The subpoena threatened more than the privacy of an interview. McIntyre understood his recorded account as a chronicle of years in a banned organisation, including descriptions of illegal acts. He feared that investigators could use it to bring charges against him long after the events described. One allegation appeared especially weak: police records would have shown, he believed, that he was in custody when the pipe bombing took place. The prospect of formal proceedings seemed unlikely to reassure him; the possibility that the interview could be used against him was itself a source of fear.

A Conversation Beside the River Boyne

In spring 2018, the narrator travelled from Belfast by train to Drogheda to meet McIntyre and Carrie. They met one evening at a restaurant on the banks of the River Boyne. The narrator explained why he believed Marian Price had murdered Jean McConville. McIntyre listened with a whiskey before acknowledging that he had previously told the narrator about an offer from Gerry Adams, while refusing to confirm or deny that Marian had been the shooter.

Carrie recalled that Marian had been maid of honour at her wedding to McIntyre. She and McIntyre also pointed to Marian’s poor health and the possible repercussions of publishing the allegation for her adult children. Their response did not settle the question: after the meal, neither told the narrator that his conclusion was wrong, but neither confirmed it either.

Drogheda’s Narrative Role

The two encounters give Drogheda distinct roles in the account. At home, the email turns a confidential oral-history project into an immediate personal and legal danger. At the restaurant, the setting becomes a place to test a deduction drawn from testimony about a killing. The movement from one scene to the other shifts the focus from the state’s pursuit of an interview to the limits of what McIntyre and Carrie are willing to say about another person’s alleged role.

Drogheda is therefore associated not with a final resolution but with disclosure under pressure. The subpoena makes McIntyre’s own recorded past newly vulnerable to official scrutiny; the later conversation brings forward a grave allegation while leaving its central point unverified by the people asked to address it.