Sir, – Two points must be addressed before dealing with the main question of desertion.
Neutrality was the only realistic policy for Ireland. In 1939 just Great Britain and France of all the countries in Europe went to war with Germany. Others became involved only after they were invaded or were coerced into joining the Axis powers. In the uncertain state of affairs it was necessary to maintain the Army at as full a strength as possible until the cessation of hostilities in Europe, not least because of Éamon de Valera’s guarantee, repeated more than once, that in no circumstances would Ireland be used as a base for hostile action against Great Britain.
Desertion is a grave offence. On attestation, a recruit takes an oath to serve his country, the full implications of this having been explained to him by the attesting officer. The punishment for desertion, following a guilty verdict by a court-martial, is imprisonment. The dismissive statement in your Editorial (January 26th)describing as “codology” the assertion that desertion is always wrong is not merely offensive: it is foolish. Deserters are not schoolboys playing truant. No crime, however lightly it may be punished, can be air-brushed away as if it never happened.
More alarming, however, is the statement of the Minister for Defence (Home News, January 25th). He said: “Some of those [ie, Irish who fought in British uniforms] included members of our Defence Forces who left this island that time to fight for freedom.”
Left this island when we were on a war footing, as if they were free to come and go at will! The Minister for Defence has a leading role in the upholding of the Defence Acts. Is this his view of desertion?
Given that this was said by the Minister, could one see it being advanced as a defence in a future court-martial trial for desertion?
His further statement that “. . . in the context of the Holocaust, Irish neutrality was a principle of moral bankruptcy” is quite appalling. Is he saying that at the time that the horrors were emerging in 1945 we should not have been neutral? If so, should we have been in the war from the outset; or should we have joined in at some later date?
How does he envisage that such involvement might have come about? Of course, this controversy would not have occurred if the 5,000, like the rest of the 45,450 men and women from the then 26 counties that departed to serve in Britain without hindrance from the Irish government, had gone straight into the British forces rather than join the Irish Army and then desert.
I can accept the granting of pardons if doing so brings comfort to elderly men in their declining years, but this must not involve the condoning of their desertion. – Yours, etc,