Sir, – PD Goggin’s “An Irishman’s Diary” (July 19th) was a well-nuanced piece on the Irish military tradition in which he also seeks to defend those Irish soldiers who deserted the Irish Army during the Second World War “to fight against Nazism”.
As someone who walked the Commonwealth War Graves at Cassino in 1995 and wept at the the scores of graves of young Irish lads buried there, I have no problem with any posthumous pardon.
The mistake those involved in that campaign are making is to attack Éamon de Valera and the Irish government that brought Ireland so well through that war. – Yours, etc,