Sunday World

Sunday World is depicted as an active participant in the public dispute over the Belfast Project, not merely a recorder of it. Its coverage described alarm in republican circles and identified additional people purportedly interviewed by Anthony McIntyre, helping turn a contested oral-history project into a source of public accusation and personal risk.

Coverage of the Belfast Project

In an article titled The Boston Time Bomb, Sunday World described a state of panic in republican circles over the Belfast Project and named several additional people who were said to have given interviews to Anthony McIntyre. The qualification matters: these were individuals reportedly connected to the interviews, not participants whose involvement the account independently establishes. The article also carried a former IRA figure’s allegation that McIntyre had turned respected people into informers, placing the paper’s reporting within an atmosphere where the label itself could carry serious consequences.

Public Fallout

The controversy was visible beyond the newspaper’s pages. Graffiti appeared on buildings around Belfast branding people associated with the project as Boston College informers. Anthony McIntyre responded to the climate of exposure by telling his children not to answer the door to anyone and by checking beneath his car for an explosive device. The episode shows how publication and public rumor could extend the dispute from questions about interview records into everyday precautions against possible attack.