Madam, – The latest attack on the recently re-erected statue of the late Irish republican leader Seán Russell in Fairview Park is a most sinister development. ( “Vandals deface memorial of republican leader Seán Russell”, July 9th). Graffiti proclaiming that Russell was “Nazi scum” which was sprayed on the statue, is just as inaccurate as the reported date of his death which the Irish Times article stated was 1944. In fact Seán Russell died in August 1940 just months after the war started.
In December 2004, individuals claiming to be “anti fascist” deliberately vandalised a previous monument to the late Seán Russell. For some time now there has been an orchestrated campaign waged in an attempt to force Dublin City Council to remove Russell’s statue forever.
Russell was a former IRA Chief of Staff who died aboard a German U-boat in 1940, and was buried at sea. He had been returning to Ireland from Germany having tried to secure an arms shipment to launch a military campaign against British rule in Ireland. Russell, according to those who knew him, was loyal to a cause, not an ideology. He had no world view other than a firm commitment to ending British rule in Ireland. In previous years he had made similar expeditions to the United States and the Soviet Union seeking arms.
Russell is seen as a weak link because of the universal loathing for the Third Reich, and the revulsion attached to any individual who had dealings with it, even though not endorsing its policies.
About the same time as Russell was seeking arms from Germany, Avraham Stern, founder of Lehi, the Zionist organisation in pursuance of a Jewish State, collaborated with the German Nazi authorities, offering to “actively take part in the war on Germany’s side” in return for help in securing Jewish independence. Stern and his successor, future Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, rejected collaboration with the British, and claimed that only the defeat of the British Empire would lead to an independent Jewish State. Were Stern and Shamir Nazi sympathisers?
In a previous Irish Timesarticle on spies in Ireland published on Friday, June 6th, 1958, Seán Russell was quoted as having previously said:" I am not a Nazi, I am not even pro-German, I am an Irishman fighting for the independence of Ireland. The British have been our enemies for hundreds of years. They are the enemy of Germany to-day. If it suits Germany to give us help to achieve independence, I am willing to accept it, but no more, and there must be no strings attached".
To label Russell a Nazi collaborator is inaccurate. He is entitled to have his reputation defended. – Yours, etc,
Madam, I find it utterly shocking that the statue in Fairview Park dedicated to the most notorious traitor to the Irish state since its foundation, Seán Russell, is being restored. This statue was decapitated four years ago at the time of the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camps near Krakow, Poland. The list of charges against this man is as long as it is revolting. He collaborated with the Nazis, he sought to overthrow our nation state in 1940 and he intended to kill many Irish and British people to realise this twisted vision.
It is simply incredible that Dublin City Council have donated public money to restore a monument to a man that committed treason, fomented racial and sectarian intolerance and sought to malevolently kick the embers of the Civil War across every parish in the island.
I would like to know how the city council believes this is consistent with international treaties the Irish state has signed. I would like to know how we felt justified asking for an apology for the potato famine 150 years after the event but seem to approve of building monuments to Nazi collaborators.
Would the council consider a statue to Ratko Mladic or Idi Amin if they had Irish relatives? The Minister for Local Government is putting a large incinerator into Ringsend so maybe he could talk with the council about dedicating it to William Joyce. Why honour one patsy without acknowledging the other Paddy link to the glorious Third Reich.
Dublin City Council and all of its councillors should hang their collective heads in shame. By their deeds you shall know them. – Yours, etc,