Ed Moloney

Edmund Gerrard Morton Moloney (5 May 1948 – 17 October 2025) was an Irish journalist and author, best known for his coverage of the Troubles in Northern Ireland and the activities of the Provisional IRA, in particular.

Moloney worked for the Hibernia magazine and Magill before going on to serve as Northern Ireland editor for The Irish Times and subsequently for the Sunday Tribune. He was living and working in New York City at the time of his death. His first book, Paisley, co-authored by Andy Pollak and published in 1986, was a biography of Unionist leader Ian Paisley.

In 2002, he published a best-selling history of the Provisional IRA, A Secret History of the IRA. A second edition was published in July 2007. This was followed, in 2008, by a new edition of Paisley: From Demagogue to Democrat?, of which Moloney is the single author.

In 1999, he was voted Irish Journalist of the Year.

Moloney directed Boston College's Belfast Project, which collected interviews with republican and loyalist militants, to be released only after the interviewees had died. In March 2010, the book Voices from the Grave was published, which featured interviews with Brendan Hughes (who had died in 2008) and David Ervine (who had died in 2007), compiled by researchers from the project. He based the book on the interviews given by Hughes and Ervine. Excerpts from the book published by The Sunday Times relate to Hughes discussing his role in the IRA.

Events recorded in the book include Hughes' actions in regard to the disappearance of Jean McConville and others, Bloody Friday, and the sourcing of IRA weapons, among other details of Hughes' IRA career. In October 2010, Irish broadcaster RTÉ aired an 83-minute television documentary co-produced by Moloney based on Voices from the Grave. In February 2011, Voices From the Grave won the best television documentary prize at the annual Irish Film and Television Awards.

Early life Moloney was born in Aldershot, England on 5 May 1948 and spent part of his childhood in Alexandria, West Dunbartonshire in Scotland. He had polio as a boy, which left him disabled.

In his earlier life he was involved with the Official IRA.

Moloney refused to comply with a court order that he should give to the police notes he had made during the interviews. He faced jail or heavy fines but, in October 1999, Lord Chief Justice Sir Robert Carswell ruled at the High Court in Belfast that the judge had been mistaken in ordering Moloney to turn over his notes to the police.

Views Supporting Glenn Greenwald, Moloney wrote in 2013: "Most ominously in their efforts to silence dissent from within government, Obama/Holder are seeking to criminalize the media, insinuating in some prosecutions that by facilitating a whistleblower, journalists can be accomplices in crime. So far the White House has shied from actually following through with charges but it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that they may try to over the Snowden case, hence the fierce hostility to the radical journalist Glenn Greenwald in establishment and media circles."

Assassination attempt In May 2020, Village magazine revealed attempts to assassinate Moloney and Vincent Browne had been planned in 1982.

In the February 1982 Irish general election, Sinn Féin the Workers' Party had won three seats and found themselves in a position of power.