THE director of the Boston College tapes has hit back at Gerry Adams after the Sinn Fein leader criticised the oral history project as "flawed from the beginning".
Ed Moloney also welcomed indications from the university that it would return interviews to ex-paramilitaries who took part in the so-called 'Belfast project'.
It comes after some interviews recorded for the project were used by the PSNI in questioning Mr Adams over the 1972 IRA murder of Jean McConville.
The Sinn Fein president was arrested last week and released on Sunday without charge after four days in custody. A file is being sent to prosecutors.
Former paramilitaries took part in the Boston College project under the assurance that their taped interviews would not be released until after their deaths.
However, the PSNI launched a successful legal bid and gained access to 11 out of hundreds of interviews as part of their investigation into Mrs McConville's death.
Mr Adams, who has repeatedly denied having anything to do with the killing, said allegations made by Boston project interviewees had "formed the mainstay" of his arrest.
The Louth TD (65) criticised the five-year US project, suggesting that the majority of those interviewed were "anti-Sinn Fein".
"The Boston College Belfast project was flawed from the beginning," he said.
"I welcome the end of the Boston Belfast
Project, indicated by the college's offer to now return the interviews to the interviewees before the securocrats who cannot live with the peace seek to seize the rest of the archive and do mischief."
Irish writer and journalist Mr Moloney responded yesterday by fiercely dismissing criticism of the Boston College oral history project.
"One simple reality has been over-looked. Mr Adams does not know what he is talking about," he said on his online blog.
"There were over 200 interviews from 26 participants housed in the Boston College archive and Mr Adams has not read them, does not know their full content and aside from two or three names that are in the public domain, does not know who was interviewed.
"He speaks from a position of almost complete ignorance about the archive."
Boston College yesterday indicated its willingness to hand back the tapes to those who were interviewed.
"Obviously we'd have to verify that they were the individuals that took part in the process," college spokesman Jack Dunn told the BBC.
"If they wanted those documents returned, we'd be prepared to return those documents."
Mr Moloney told The Irish News he was "glad" Boston College was now willing to return the tapes to interviewees.
"We have been pressing Boston College for over two years and the college was refusing to do so on the grounds that they were holding them for the PSNI, so I am glad that they are returning the tapes," he said.
However, he said Boston College may have difficulty identifying some of the anonymised interviewees, claiming that the university lost some identification forms.
* INTERVIEWS: Anti-clockwise from above, former republicans Dolours Price and Anthony McIntyre who took part in the Belfast Project; writer Ed Moloney and murdered mother of 10 Jean McConville
n 'Flawed': Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams has said that the Boston College Belfast Project was flawed from the beginning.