[2] Bell travelled Europe interviewing veterans of the Spanish Civil War, and in Rome he mixed with writers and artists including Cy Twombly.
[1] After graduating, Bell began teaching at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University and Trinity School in Manhattan.
[2] In New York, Bell socialised with the likes of Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Jack Kerouac and Frank Stella at the Cedar Tavern.
[1] He began research in the National Library of Ireland, and also interviewed Irish republicans in a Kilkenny public house and hotels in Dublin.
[1] Bell continued to travel extensively, researching in the Middle East, Africa, Europe and Asia as part of a career described as "talking to terrorists, gunmen, mad dogs and mercenaries".
[3] Following the death of his first wife in 1981, Bell married an Irishwoman, Norah Browne from County Kerry, whom he had met while filming his 1972 documentary, The Secret Army.
[1] He continued to work as an independent scholar, carrying out research with the aid of grants; he received over seven Guggenheim Fellowships and turned down a Rockefeller Humanities Award.
[2][4] As well as releasing updated versions of The Secret Army, Bell continued to write about other aspects of the conflicts in Ireland and the Middle East.
[1] Cheating and Deception was published in 1991, The Irish Troubles: A Generation of Violence 1967–1992 in 1993, In Dubious Battle: The Dublin and Monaghan Bombings 1972–1974 and Back to the Future: The Protestants and a United Ireland in 1996, and Dynamics of the Armed Struggle in 1998.
[1][2][3] With the aid of a grant from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Bell returned to the Middle East in 2000 to conduct research for his next book, on Egyptian Islamic terrorism.