Sir, – Tommy Graham’s assumptions (January 27th) about the raison d’être for our campaign are way off the mark. The Irish Soldiers Pardons Campaign (WW2) has always accepted without equivocation that desertion is a serious offence and those found guilty of the offence of desertion or any military offence must suffer the consequences. However, accused Defence Force personnel subjected to such allegations are entitled to be judged in accordance with military law and within the framework of a properly constituted military tribunal together with the inalienable right to present a defence on their behalf pursuant to the Constitution.
A legislative assembly acting as a substitute for a military tribunal subverts the judicial function of a court-martial and is reminiscent of a kangaroo court. It is the function of a military court to adjudicate on the guilt or innocence of an accused and while it is the function of politicians to make the laws it is not their function to act as judge, jury and executioner, as was the case when Éamon de Valera initiated his Emergency Powers order 1945, in order to dismiss and punish alleged deserters.
The traumatic experience of these Defence Force personnel and their families post-war should be a warning to all concerned of what can go wrong when a government demonstrates a total disregard for the constitutional rights of its own citizens by ousting the administration of justice for the sake of political expediency.
A pardon does not displace the status quo, but it does remove insofar as practicable the stigma of dishonour attached to that blacklist. Other governments, particularly the British government have been able to overcome sensitive issues surrounding the granting of pardons, indeed with the support of the Irish government to pardon the first World War Irish Shot at Dawn.
Fortunately our constitutional right of access to the courts, fair procedure and natural justice is an integral part of the constitutional imperative on fundamental rights and available to all our citizens without exception – which includes those accused of desertion. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – The most basic reason the UK went to war in 1939, as in 1914, was because German control of channel ports and European resources was an intolerable risk to Britain, domestically and imperially. The fate of European Jewry had nothing to do with it.
Prof Geoffrey Roberts implies Irish people were well aware of what Germans were doing to civilian populations, including Jews. That is not so, and therefore could not have been a motivation for Irish people who chose to fight on the allied side. Wartime censorship in Ireland was intense and effective. Most people had little real idea of what was happening.
Prof Roberts is right to say that members of the Commonwealth declared war in 1939. But Canada, Australia, and New Zealand did to face imminent threat of invasion in 1939. Nazi sympathy in South Africa among Afrikaners was high; in India there was an attempt to mobilise in favour of the Japanese in order to drive the British out. Commonwealth support at a popular level for the UK was not unanimous.
But, Prof Roberts is right: contrary to Churchillian rhetoric, Britain did not stand alone in 1939, something that was factored in by the military analysts when they weighed the chances of British survival.
But small European states went by the maxim that wars between big states are bad for small states, and tried everything to keep out. Ireland was no exception, and was perfectly within its rights to do so. Ireland was neutral: not neutral on the allied side; not covertly neutral. Neutral.
The question therefore is; should men who took an oath (oaths were serious matters; there had been a civil war over an oath) of allegiance to the Irish State be pardoned for having broken their oath and deserted the Army? Either the State takes itself seriously, or it does not. If it does, then it cannot grant a pardon on anything other than compassionate grounds.
That in no way diminishes the Irish contribution to what the Allies did, something for which every successive generation will owe a profound debt of gratitude. – Yours, etc,