Madam, – Tommy Graham (March 30th) in discussing Éamon de Valera’s bid to blacken Seán Russell’s name in the eyes of Irish nationalists in 1939, wonders why Dev considered “a Soviet smear more effective than a Nazi one”. But surely at the time there was no particular animus here against Germany?
In fact there was a common tendency to admire Hitler for restoring his country’s fortunes after Versailles. On the other hand, “godless Russia” was a familiar image with Irish Catholics who were long accustomed to after-Mass prayers for its conversion. It seems that Dev’s famed auto-cardiac instincts were sound in this instance. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – The reported attempt by Éamon de Valera to smear Seán Russell, the IRA’s chief-of-staff at the outbreak of the second World War, and portray him as a Soviet spy, drew a response from Tommy Graham, Editor, History Ireland, (Letters, March 29th). Mr Graham said, “the real threat in 1939 came not from the Soviets but from the Nazis”.
This is not so. The only overt threat to Irish sovereignty came, not from Nazi Germany but from the British prime minister Winston Churchill who threatened “to come to close quarters with Mr de Valera” over the Treaty ports. Britain was prepared to violate Irish sovereignty if it was in its interests. Ironically, it was the violation of Polish sovereignty by Nazi Germany which forced Britain to declare war on Germany.
Smears against Russell have continued to the present day. He continues to be depicted as a Nazi stooge and an anti-Semite.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. He had made many expeditions to the United States, Germany and the Soviet Union, seeking arms to be used against the British occupation of Ireland.
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. This did not mean that Stern and Shamir were Nazi sympathisers.
In an Irish Times article on spies in Ireland published on Friday, June 6th, 1958, Seán Russell was quoted as saying, “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”.
Russell was neither a Nazi collaborator or a Soviet spy. He was an Irish patriot who gave his life fighting for Irish freedom. – Yours, etc,
