Sir, – I have recently spent some time researching Australian records and been impressed by both the range of information available and the extent to which it can readily be accessed online.
This includes a significant proportion of military service records held by the National Archives of Australia (NAA); and Elaine White (January 18th) may be interested to know that her late father’s records are held in the archives in Canberra.
He is recorded as Walter Miller, born in Clifton (sic), Ireland on December 23rd, 1912, service number 22479 and she may be able to request a copy from the NAA. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Did republicans act like unionists in reverse during the War of Independence? If we are to accept the view of southern Protestants at the time, it seems not. A Protestant Convention that met after the war, in Dublin’s Mansion House on May 11th, 1922, resolved, “We place on record that, until the recent tragedies in the County Cork, hostility to Protestants by reason of their religion has been almost, if not wholly, unknown in the Twenty-Six counties in which Protestants are in a minority.” The ‘recent tragedies’ was a reference to the killing of 10 Protestant civilians by persons unknown two weeks earlier.
Does this one west Cork exception illustrate a rule stating that there was not generalised anti-Protestantism during the period in question? Southern Protestants often rejected Ulster Unionist allegations that there was. There are too many examples to be ignored. Subsequently published memoirs reinforce this view. Support for the opposite point of view is, as Ian Cox points out (January 17th), in Peter Hart’s research published in 1998. The problem is that Hart excluded from his account evidence not supporting his opinion. For instance, Hart cited in relation to the west Cork killings a British intelligence account stating that Protestants generally did not inform. However, he omitted the next sentence, which stated that an “exception” was the “Bandon Valley” area, where the killings occurred.
Ian Cox mentioned the “Coolacrease killings” in Co Offaly. Two brothers named Pearson were killed by the IRA in June 1921. A year later, Fr Montgomery Hitchock, a historian and Rector of nearby Kinnitty, stated that the area was “absolutely free from sectarian feeling, not to say bitterness”. He had “never known one case of religious intolerance. We can only live and let live down here”. How could a Church of Ireland clergyman square the killing of the Pearsons (who were not “pacifists”) with this statement? It can only be that during the course of the conflict, when a member of a minority religious community was attacked, it was generally perceived as being due to activity not identity.
There were bigoted nationalists. There still are. Per capita, however, there were more bigoted Ulster unionists who had some followers, a minority of the religious minority, down south. They were encouraged and enlisted by British forces. Many suffered because of this.
I am sorry if Ian Cox finds additional information with regard to the burning of the Ballyconree orphanage in June 1922 wearisome (January 13th). Publishing relevant evidence is not for the purpose of condemning or condoning historical events. It may prevent contemporary observers using them for tendentious purposes. Unfortunately, Peter Hart’s work was used in that manner, generating heat where there should be light. – Yours, etc,