The BelTel

Belfast poet, Sinéad Morrisey, was brought up in a Communist family. Hers was a childhood lived in the little world created by the party, a world apart from others and from the Troubles.

It involved smoke-filled rooms, endless meetings, and dreams of a future utopia – coupled with a belief that east of the Iron Curtain, there were people already living in it.

The fall of Communism in the eastern block was more than an historical event for her family – it was the end of a dream and of a way of life.

Sinéad Morrisey’s new memoir is called ‘Among Communists’. She joined Ciarán Dunbar to explain the book and her story.
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Members of the jury in the Noah Donohoe inquest have been asked to indicate their availability for the month of May.

The inquest officially began on the 19th of January and was expected to finish up in mid-March.

Fourteen-year-old Noah’s body was discovered in north Belfast on the 27 of June 2020 - six days after he had gone missing.

This week an anonymous witness at the inquest denied being the caller who informed police that Daryl Paul had been trying to sell Noah Donohoe’s laptop.

Liam Tunney has been covering the inquest for the Belfast Telegraph.
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It was supposed to be an oral record of the Troubles, made by the paramilitaries, and initially the ‘Boston Tapes’ project seemed like a really good idea, albeit one which would include descriptions of violence and terror.
The concept was simple – former paramilitaries would be interviewed, the tapes would then be kept in storage, and their stories only revealed after the interviewee’s deaths.
But it became clear that the scheme was flawed and that the recordings were not as secret as participants assumed.
Now the Belfast Telegraph can reveal that the Boston College tapes archive has been formally closed - and will remain so for 75 years from when it was first created
What was the Boston Tapes project?
What went wrong?
And why have the records been sealed?
Ciarán Dunbar is joined by Belfast Telegraph reporter, Andrew Madden.

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Murderer Stephen McCullagh has been aptly described as “a monster hiding in plain sight”.
A week on from his conviction there has been a lot of reaction to the the nerd-culture YouTuber’s conviction of murdering Natalie McNally.
He denied the killing, but the jury unanimously found him guilty in a matter of hours. He has yet to be given his tariff, but Natalie’s family says he should never be let out.
They say he is simply “too dangerous to let out on the street”.
Meanwhile, the Sunday Life has revealed that a film made by McCullagh as a student chillingly foretold the murder and how he pretended to be one of our journalists to find out what evidence the cops had on him.

The Sunday Life’s Angela Davison joins Ciarán Dunbar with some of the stories which could not be told whilst the trial was ongoing and what has emerged since McCullagh’s conviction.

This podcast was amended at 10:00 am on Monday 30th March in order to correct an error. A previous version mentioned in the podcast intro that 'McNally' made a video whilst a student, when it should have said 'McCullagh' made a video as a student.
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The jury at the inquest into the death of Noah Donohoe has now heard nine weeks of evidence – the process could last until May.
This week they heard more on how police dealt with CCTV footage of the missing teenager and how his school books were found in a Belfast flat.
A police officer also revealed that he was briefed before he spoke to the inquest.
Liam Tunney is covering the Noah Donohoe inquest for the Belfast Telegraph.

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