Ireland

Ahern to press UK on pardons for shot soldiers

The Government will continue to put pressure on Britain to find a mechanism to pardon the 26 Irish soldiers who were executed…

Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern with Peter Mulvany (left), who heads the Irish "Shot at Dawn" campaign, Christy Walsh (second from right), great nephew of soldier Patrick Downey, who was executed for alleged dereliction of duty near Salonica in 1917, and Senator Paschal Mooney (right), who requested yesterday's debate in the Seanad.

Stephen Collins
Political Correspondent
Wed Mar 29 2006 - 01:00

The Government will continue to put pressure on Britain to find a mechanism to pardon the 26 Irish soldiers who were executed during the first World War for alleged dereliction of duty, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dermot Ahern, told the Seanad last night.

Speaking in a special debate on the issue, after the publication of an Irish Government report into the individual cases, Mr Ahern said there had been regular contact with the British, and he hoped that there could be a mutually-agreeable solution.

"While there are differences between ourselves and the British government on the issues raised in the report, I am of the view that the British government is cognisant of the need to address this issue. In our contacts, they have made clear they too are motivated by an enduring desire to ease the pain and suffering of the families of all the 306 men who were shot at dawn, including the 26 Irish cases that were examined in our report," the Minister said.

"In its findings, the report described a military system of justice which was seriously flawed, which appeared to ignore clear evidence of medical afflictions and which was marked by class bias and a disparity in the treatment of different nationalities including, in particular, Irish soldiers."

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Mr Ahern said that the report was not an attempt to rewrite history or to impose today's norms on the past, but the reality was that the manner in which the men had been tried and found guilty was the subject of controversy and concern at the time.

In response to that campaign, the British parliament decided in 1930 that the offences should no longer carry the death penalty.

"This is a very important issue, in particular for the families of those unjustly executed. This year we mark the 90th anniversary of the Easter Rising and the Battle of the Somme," Mr Ahern continued. "For too long, the experiences of the Irish men who fought in the first World War and the losses suffered by their families were not talked about and commemorated as they deserved."

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