A time to pardon

The TREATMENT of soldiers who deserted from the Defence Forces to serve with the British army during the Second World War became…

The TREATMENT of soldiers who deserted from the Defence Forces to serve with the British army during the Second World War became a political issue in 1945 and it remains one today.

About 5,000 men were involved and, in present circumstances, a general pardon would help to heal old hurts and offer belated comfort to their families and to the small number of survivors. The Government favours such a development and Attorney General Máire Whelan will advise on how it might be done.

Saying “sorry” is extremely difficult for any government. But, when the words are out, they can comfort the recipients and provide influence for those offering regret. Apologies from the British government concerning the events of Bloody Sunday and, more recently, regrets by Queen Elizabeth about aspects of our shared and bloody history, have all helped to normalise relations between these islands. If a pardon for these soldiers helps to reassure unionists of changing nationalist mindsets and the Government’s good faith, will that not be a positive development?

There are those who insist that desertion is always wrong and the offence cannot be pardoned. That is codology. It is always open to governments to entertain pardon. Circumstances change and governments write the rules, as was done in this particular instance in 1945. At that time, taoiseach Éamon de Valera used the Emergency Powers Act to bypass the military authorities and deal directly with the returning soldiers. Who knows what his motives were, but the Army included a high proportion of “Free State” officers who might have regarded their former comrades in a more benign light.

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In any event, an Emergency Powers Order stripped these soldiers of pensions and banned their employment in all State agencies for a period of seven years. The order was opposed by the Labour Party in the Dáil and described by Fine Gael’s T F O’Higgins as “brutal and inhumane…stimulated by malice… and oozing with venom”. All political parties acknowledged that desertion could not be condoned. What was at issue was the government’s decision to remove the power to deal with these men through courts martial and to punish all soldiers equally under emergency legislation.

Most of the men involved left the Army after 1941, when the threat of invasion had receded. In joining the British army and supporting the allied war effort, they did openly what the government of the day was doing covertly. A pardon would reflect that reality.