A family haunted by the search for truth

IN December 1972 Jean McConville, a 38-year-old widow with 10 children, was abducted, murdered and dumped in an unamrked grave by the Provisional IRA.

Her body was not recovered for 31 years.

Despite family differences, her nine surviving children have called for legal action against Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams over his alleged involvement.

Michael McConville was nine when a group of men and women broke through his family’s front door.

The group, from the area surrounding the Divis flats complex in Belfast where the McConvilles lived, identified themselves and said they were taking his mother away “for questioning”.

Michael remembers being dragged away from the 38-year-old widow and pushed to one side.

He remembers seeing his mother, who days earlier suffered a beating, ordered into a waiting car, next to where “Brit lovers” graffiti had been daubed.

He can still hear his older brothers explaining that a Provisional IRA member had come to the family’s door days later with his mother’s purse and earrings, and the numb knowledge that her lifeless body was dumped in an unmarked grave.

He remembers neighbours ignoring Jean McConville’s 10 children for weeks, of pointed claims his mother “ran off with a soldier”, of social workers and police only intervening after Michael was caught shoplifting for food.

He hasn’t forgotten how his family was “torn apart again” when his brothers and sisters were sent to different orphanages and foster homes, of not seeing some of his siblings for seven years.

Michael remembers living his adult life haunted by what happened; of asking questions and receiving only half-answers; of the day his mother’s body was finally found in Shelling Hill beach, Co Louth, in August 2003.

Most of all, the now 48-year-old father of four remembers hearing at his mother’s 2004 inquest the exact details of what happened: that Jean McConville was beaten, knelt down, and shot once in the back of the head.

Others, however, seem all too keen to forget.

Revelations by the now deceased senior Provisional IRA figure Brendan ‘The Dark’ Hughes, made in Ed Moloney’s new book Voices From The Grave, claim Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams ordered Jean McConville to be shot and disappeared for holding British army transmitters.

The allegations, including claims he over-ruled plans to leave her body in the street to be recovered, have been strongly denied by Mr Adams since they were given widespread attention last Sunday.

However, Jean McConville’s nine surviving children — who insist their mother was murdered for coming to the aid of a wounded British soldier — have a different understanding of what happened.

Last Monday Jean’s eldest daughter, Helen McKendry, confirmed she is planning to take a civil case against Mr Adams over his alleged involvement.

While the civil case called for by Helen and supported by the entire family is in its early stages, the McConvilles hope it will bring clarity.

They don’t want any money, Michael insists.

All they want is an explanation and for Mr Adams “to tell the truth”.

“We want him to say what happened, if what happened was a mistake and why our mother’s body was disappeared.

“I’ve never had peace and quietness because of this, none of us have.

“What happened, it haunts us. Night and day.”